This blog has officially moved to www.red-slice.com/blog. If you are already signed up for the email feed, you will automatically start received the new feed.
Cheers!
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Getting Your Story Told: Recovering from Brain Injury
We all have a story to tell. In my work, I advise businesses on how to tell their stories to "engage, inform and delight." But this mission is also a personal one. I've always been a storyteller, whether it be marketing, writing or acting. I love watching the "a ha" happen for people who have just earned something new or who are delighted, moved, or inspired.
I've been pitching my story about recovering from brain aneurysm/hemorrhage to various media outlets to educate about brain injury and inspire those facing challenges. KUOW here in Seattle loved my transformational story and interviewed me for KUOW Presents. The show aired on Saturday, November 7.
As with marketing, you need to ensure that you have value to offer your audience when doing something like this. And I really wanted to let people know about the effects of brain injury, that the struggle is ongoing even if you "look "fine" and that you have to redefine and accept yourself as a result. So many people know little about this experience, and with all the troops coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan with brain injuries from combat, you can be sure you or someone you know, work with, or hang out with may have been touched by it.
I wrote more about my experiences on my personal blog. Feel free to have a look.
I've been pitching my story about recovering from brain aneurysm/hemorrhage to various media outlets to educate about brain injury and inspire those facing challenges. KUOW here in Seattle loved my transformational story and interviewed me for KUOW Presents. The show aired on Saturday, November 7.
As with marketing, you need to ensure that you have value to offer your audience when doing something like this. And I really wanted to let people know about the effects of brain injury, that the struggle is ongoing even if you "look "fine" and that you have to redefine and accept yourself as a result. So many people know little about this experience, and with all the troops coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan with brain injuries from combat, you can be sure you or someone you know, work with, or hang out with may have been touched by it.
I wrote more about my experiences on my personal blog. Feel free to have a look.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
How much of "YOU" should you put in your brand?
We had a lively group at our Ignite Your Marketing workshop last night. Whitney Keyes and I presented some brand and marketing basics, a 10-step formula for creating a brand strategy, and how to put that brand into action.
Feedback was wonderful!
"Well-crafted, simple, clear explanations"
"It made me want to brainstorm further!"
"Motivating, current, lively"
"Excellent resource for any small business owner or business owner re-thinking their brand"
"Loved it! All the stuff I should have done before I opened my business but didn't!"
"I learned a lot about how to approach my own brand marketing as well as some valuable tools for promoting these values to clients. Useful for getting focused and taking the right steps."
Shout out to the great businesses who attended: Studio Evolve pilates studio, Champion Assistants online sales and marketing consultants, Ladies Who Launch Seattle community for women entrepreneurs, Andrea Rae bodywork, and Married with Luggage lifestyle and travel blog.
One of our discussions was around how much of your personality do you put into a small business brand, if you eventually want the business to be sold or "move on without you."
Brand attributes and value should be authentic, but should really be grounded in what your customer base cares about. However, to be authentic, if the business is just you right now, then it should indeed reflect you, your traits, and your values. The brand can then be operationalized into the organization as it grows. We often forget many big companies are actually named for their founders, and the founders' beliefs and values still live on in the brand - because they were consistent with what their customers wanted and needed. Think H&R Block, Disney, Nordstrom, Oprah. Some founders choose to name their business something else in plans to sell the business or move on, but the personality and values of the founder still come through in the brand (Virgin and Richard Branson come to mind)
So create a brand that is authentic to you, focuses on your values and beliefs - as long as those are of value to your customers. You can never go wrong if you do that, no matter what name you give your company.
Feedback was wonderful!
"Well-crafted, simple, clear explanations"
"It made me want to brainstorm further!"
"Motivating, current, lively"
"Excellent resource for any small business owner or business owner re-thinking their brand"
"Loved it! All the stuff I should have done before I opened my business but didn't!"
"I learned a lot about how to approach my own brand marketing as well as some valuable tools for promoting these values to clients. Useful for getting focused and taking the right steps."
Shout out to the great businesses who attended: Studio Evolve pilates studio, Champion Assistants online sales and marketing consultants, Ladies Who Launch Seattle community for women entrepreneurs, Andrea Rae bodywork, and Married with Luggage lifestyle and travel blog.
One of our discussions was around how much of your personality do you put into a small business brand, if you eventually want the business to be sold or "move on without you."
Brand attributes and value should be authentic, but should really be grounded in what your customer base cares about. However, to be authentic, if the business is just you right now, then it should indeed reflect you, your traits, and your values. The brand can then be operationalized into the organization as it grows. We often forget many big companies are actually named for their founders, and the founders' beliefs and values still live on in the brand - because they were consistent with what their customers wanted and needed. Think H&R Block, Disney, Nordstrom, Oprah. Some founders choose to name their business something else in plans to sell the business or move on, but the personality and values of the founder still come through in the brand (Virgin and Richard Branson come to mind)
So create a brand that is authentic to you, focuses on your values and beliefs - as long as those are of value to your customers. You can never go wrong if you do that, no matter what name you give your company.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Time, Time, Time...How to Sell It
Today's WSJ has an excellent article on how companies can use time to their competitive advantage. In a world with only so many high-level benefits can be offered (you can have sub-messages at the 2nd and 3rd tiers down, but really most benefits either increase, decrease or improve something) this is a great way to differentiate yourself- if you can keep in mind exactly how your product or service manipulates time.
They grouped the time factors into 2 categories:
1) Managing Time as Price. Helping people do things faster, thus saving time and helping people do more in less time. The reporters found 4 approaches to this benefit statement:
They grouped the time factors into 2 categories:
1) Managing Time as Price. Helping people do things faster, thus saving time and helping people do more in less time. The reporters found 4 approaches to this benefit statement:
- Doing it for them (ie, Roomba vacuums)
- Picking up the pace (drive-through windows)
- Shrinking the time committment, if that has been the obstacle to purchase (lunchtime facelifts)
- Ending the wait (redesigned check out line processes for faster service)
2) Managing Time as Product. Turning time into something people will buy. For example, all the home-based cooking offerings out there, like Washington's own Dream Dinners. It enables you to prepare a home-cooked meal ahead of time, pick your entrees on the web, and then stop by their local Dream Dinners on the way home to assemble the pre-chopped ingredients. They estimate they save people 20 hours a month in all the tasks involved in planning, prepping, shopping, preparing and clean up. So customers essentially "buy time."
The article talked about giving people a choice on whether they prefer to save time or enjoy their time more. They cited Blue Nile, where you can buy jewelry and engagement rings online, as one who employs a choice strategy. He can research as little or as much as he wants, but once the selection is made, the transaction is pretty quick.
The article goes further to say companies need to continually check in on this strategy and benefit with their customers, as needs change over time. Their assessment of time costs changes as well so you must continually test new approaches. The goods and services that customers may have been willing to invest time in when they were new, may now require time-saving approaches and redesigns today just to stay relevant - and to meet changing expectations.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Brand Gap: What's in a name?
More from Marty Neumeier's great book The Brand Gap: What makes a good company name?I love this, as I get asked this question all the time. By no means a naming "expert", I still have put on my branding and creative writing hat for clients on this - for example, coming up with the name for Betsy Talbot's lifestyle and travel blog Married with Luggage (plug: check out her new series on how they saved up $75,000 for their planned trip around the world.). But Marty outlines some great points on how to choose a good name. With full credit to him on this (why reinvent the wheel on great advice?), here's the 7 criteria for a good name:
1) Distinctiveness: Does it stand out from the crowd? He says the best names have the "presence" of a noun.
2) Bevity: Is it short enough to be easily recalled and used? Or will it result it being abbreviated into a meaningless acronym?
3) Appropriateness: Does it reasonably fit the business purpose?
4) Easy spelling and pronuniciation: Tech companies in the late 90's/early 2000's bit it on this one. Will most people be able to spell the name after hearing it spoken at an event or in an ad (or more importantly, via word of mouth?). Marty says a name should not be a spelling test, nor should it make people feel ignorant.
5) Likability: Sorry, can't help but think about the Drinkability ads for beer on this one...Will people enjoy using it (How much do I love saying "Bing!" now? Ask my husband...), does it have a good "mouth feel" or does it stimulate the senses/mind? If not, it should....
6) Extendability: Can you use it in different places creatively or interpretively? Does it suggest an image or visual? This will greatly help you extend the name brand in wordplay and imagery. One of my clients has the name CareerBranches and I love it as we build out her brand, logo and imagery. So much with which to play..
7) Protectability: Can it be trademarked? Is the domain available? Consult with trademark lawyer before any final selection and at last make sure the name is defendable, even if someone else is using it in a completely different industry.
Given this, I 'm very happy with having selected Red Slice.....!
Photo credit: pdphoto.org
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Make Marketing Matter to Your CEO
Many of us in the corporate world have at one time or another stuggled to justify marketing expenditures to the powers-that-be. If I had a dime for every time I fought with a CFO over why we needed to pay for certain marketing activities ("No, I don't know how to code HTML, thank you very much.") I'd have enough money to have paid for those initiatives 10 times over.
And what happens when you are the CEO of your own company? How can you justify those expenses to yourself and still sleep at night?
CEO's care about cash flow, sales growth and bottom line earnings growth. If you can track back your marketing efforts to any of those things, you wil score big.
You must first answer the question, "How does this work produce cash flow?" As a former marketing leader I worked for once said, "Marketing exists to help salespeople sell more easily." So if you want markting to get the budget it deserves, you need to change the conversation with your CEO.
You must talk in terms of topline sales groth or bottom line earnings growth. You must care about ROI and have an infrastucture in place to measure it and track it back to specific markting efforts. You must say that your marketing activity will manage the lead pipeline, overcome price pressures, or help the sales funnel flow faster and reduce the time it takes to get from Lead to Sale.
So, where does this leave branding? The psychological, awareness activity? The activity that cannot be so easily tracked to the sales P.O. or the purchase decisions? We all know branding can work powerfully, but how do we prove it?
What I've always said is this: Branding and awareness activities in and of themselves do not drive sales. You can not just stop there and hope to move a person down the line towards the purchase decision. The buying process has 4 phases before getting to sale: Awareness, Consideration, Evaluation and Purchase. But...effective branding and awareness upfront will increase the ROI and effectiveness of your more "direct" marketing efforts later on. It provides air cover and context to all your direct marketing activity. If you try to do just the direct marketing efforts (a webcast invite, an email campaign, etc.) with no awareness or branding leading up to them, it's like burning money.
Think about it this way: You as a businss need to earn the right to show up in someone's email box. You need to earn the right to offer a special deal. You need to earn the right to get them to spend their precious time and money coming to your event. How can you do this if they don't know who the heck you are? It's like some sales guy showing up at your door during dinner. Who invited him?
You earn this right the old fashioned way: by introducing yourself to them and letting them know who you are, what you are about and what value you offer. That's branding and awareness. That's what advertising started out doing (before the Internet). No, you may not close the sale from just branding, but neither do you propose marriage on a first date You have to earn that right. If you "date" for a while, they will be much more receptive to your proposal than if you get down on one knee on the first blind date.
That is the function of branding. Creating an image, a story, fulfilling a need in the prospect's eyes over time, so that when you want them to act (attend an event, trial a product, purchase) they will already know you, love you, and most importanly, trust you. And that is what makes the money spent on those direct marketing efforts a better investment, yielding better returns. Spending $50,000 to get $5,000 in sales is less impessive to a CEO than spending $250,000 on combined branding and direct marketing efforts and getting $2,500,000 in sales, don't you think?
And what happens when you are the CEO of your own company? How can you justify those expenses to yourself and still sleep at night?
CEO's care about cash flow, sales growth and bottom line earnings growth. If you can track back your marketing efforts to any of those things, you wil score big.
You must first answer the question, "How does this work produce cash flow?" As a former marketing leader I worked for once said, "Marketing exists to help salespeople sell more easily." So if you want markting to get the budget it deserves, you need to change the conversation with your CEO.
You must talk in terms of topline sales groth or bottom line earnings growth. You must care about ROI and have an infrastucture in place to measure it and track it back to specific markting efforts. You must say that your marketing activity will manage the lead pipeline, overcome price pressures, or help the sales funnel flow faster and reduce the time it takes to get from Lead to Sale.
So, where does this leave branding? The psychological, awareness activity? The activity that cannot be so easily tracked to the sales P.O. or the purchase decisions? We all know branding can work powerfully, but how do we prove it?
What I've always said is this: Branding and awareness activities in and of themselves do not drive sales. You can not just stop there and hope to move a person down the line towards the purchase decision. The buying process has 4 phases before getting to sale: Awareness, Consideration, Evaluation and Purchase. But...effective branding and awareness upfront will increase the ROI and effectiveness of your more "direct" marketing efforts later on. It provides air cover and context to all your direct marketing activity. If you try to do just the direct marketing efforts (a webcast invite, an email campaign, etc.) with no awareness or branding leading up to them, it's like burning money.
Think about it this way: You as a businss need to earn the right to show up in someone's email box. You need to earn the right to offer a special deal. You need to earn the right to get them to spend their precious time and money coming to your event. How can you do this if they don't know who the heck you are? It's like some sales guy showing up at your door during dinner. Who invited him?
You earn this right the old fashioned way: by introducing yourself to them and letting them know who you are, what you are about and what value you offer. That's branding and awareness. That's what advertising started out doing (before the Internet). No, you may not close the sale from just branding, but neither do you propose marriage on a first date You have to earn that right. If you "date" for a while, they will be much more receptive to your proposal than if you get down on one knee on the first blind date.
That is the function of branding. Creating an image, a story, fulfilling a need in the prospect's eyes over time, so that when you want them to act (attend an event, trial a product, purchase) they will already know you, love you, and most importanly, trust you. And that is what makes the money spent on those direct marketing efforts a better investment, yielding better returns. Spending $50,000 to get $5,000 in sales is less impessive to a CEO than spending $250,000 on combined branding and direct marketing efforts and getting $2,500,000 in sales, don't you think?
Friday, October 16, 2009
Top 10 Tips for Effective Branding and Messaging
A helpful primer with some top branding tips I've culled over the years. Have some others? Would love to see them in the comments!
1. Know yourself, know your business
A good brand stems from authenticity. This means being consistent in messaging, visuals, and experience and not just giving lip service. If you claim customer service is your most important differentiator, then return calls and emails in a reasonable amount of time and don’t leave people in an automated telephone maze to get the help they need. If you claim quality, you had better make sure your goods are up to snuff. No one likes to be lied to and no one likes when their experiences fall short of expectations. Apple's hip brand works because of their quality, design, and cutting-edge products that set trends and push the boundaries. They deliver on their brand promise.
2. Make your customer real
Determine your ideal customer and market to that person. Don't aim for some amorphous blob of people out there - make it about one customer (or a persona for all the different customers you serve) and pretend you are talking to that person. Know their likes, dislikes, where they live, where they work, what magazines they like to read. The more detail you can put around this picture, this persona, even if you have a few different customer groups, the more relevant and on-target your marketing and communications will be. When you try to reach everyone, you become relevant to no one because you are too generic and vanilla.
3. Invest your marketing dollars wisely
Only invest in marketing programs that make sense. Duh - this seems obvious, but don’t buy that booth at the show unless you know your potential customers will be there. Even if it costs just $200, it's a wasted $200 if the 5000 people in attendance will never buy your product. Do the research, ask the questions. Go where your customers are, don’t expect them to come to you just because you think it would be “cool” to be at that event or produce that radio spot. If your ideal customers don’t have time to watch TV, don’t invest in producing that ad.
4. Give meaning to your “look”
Work with a brand strategist or gifted designer who understands how placement, typography, and color all work together consciously and subconsciously to communicate a message. Ensure you really map out the message you wish to convey before you create the materials or graphic elements to convey it.
5. Give brand marketing a chance to work
People need to experience things multiple times before they stick. Be clear but be consistent – they need to see your message about 7 times before they remember it. The Nike swoosh did not create meaning overnight but Nike spent years and lots of money making that mark mean something to people. Don’t expect one ad to get you to your sales targets, or a website to get you all your customers. Branding is not the same as direct response marketing – it takes time and it should be integrated across all your customer touch points. Of course, if you need to course correct if it’s not working, you can do that, but don’t change it up every month – you may be sick of your own messaging after 2 months, but others will not have had a chance to absorb it. Do the work upfront to make sure your message is on target and stick with it.
6. Be realistic
If you can’t afford to produce luxury goods or services, don’t market them as such. People still need cheap, efficient, no-frills products and services on certain occasions. Just find your audience niche and market to them only what you can provide realistically to them specifically.
7. Create a style guide
When you design a website or a logo, ensure the designers leave you with a Style Guide that has all your colors used (in PMS, HEX, CMYK), font types and sizes, any copy guidelines (ie, we never use contractions, we use a very playful, snarky tone), layout guidelines, graphic guidelines (do we use photos or illustrations?) etc. This will help you maintain consistency when you either need to do things yourself or have others step in and make changes, do other projects, etc. This should be part of your operational guidelines and shared with any employees or partners who do visual/written work with you.
8. Understand trademark and copyright
Anything you put in a fixed form is automatically copyrighted by you, whether you file for the copyright or not, as long as you can prove when they were first used. This means copy, presentations or articles. But names or logos might need to be trademarked. If you come up with any branded product or service names, at least do an online trademark search at www.uspto.gov – this includes company name and taglines. Doesn’t mean you have to necessarily file for a trademark, but at least you will know what is already in use to avoid getting sued or being asked to cease and desist. And always consult a trademark lawyer on whether you should or should not trademark certain things. Better to spend some time and money to check up front on usage before investing lots of money on naming or design, only to be told to cease and desist by someone already using those things.
9. Keep the end in mind
When getting a logo designed, keep in mind how you will use it. This can save you money in the long run. Will it always be shown in digital format, or do you plan to print it out or place it on promotional items? This will help you determine if you need a 4-color logo or 2-color logo. It is often more expensive to print 4-color than 2-color or even black and white. Also, ensure you are using mostly standard PMS or CMYK colors so as to avoid needing to pay extra for custom print colors. And think about how your logo will show up at both big and small sizes. A very minutely detailed logo may not reproduce well on websites or in event programs at a very small size.
10. Use known analogies
If you are introducing something new or unfamiliar to your target audience, try to use analogies to help them make the connections more quickly. Take what it known and convey that meaning for quick comprehension. Here’s an excerpt from the fabulous book Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath:
“When the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) was trying to convey that movie popcorn was unhealthy, all their statistics and facts caused most people's eyes to glaze over. So the CSPI called a press conference on September 27, 1992. Here's the message it presented: "A medium-sized 'butter' popcorn at a typical neighborhood movie theater contains more artery-clogging fat than a bacon-and-eggs breakfast, a Big Mac and fries for lunch, and a steak dinner with all the trimmings — combined!"
The folks at CSPI didn't neglect the visuals — they laid out the full buffet of greasy food for the television cameras. An entire day's worth of unhealthy eating, displayed on a table. All that saturated fat stuffed into a single bag of popcorn.
The story was an immediate sensation.”
1. Know yourself, know your business
A good brand stems from authenticity. This means being consistent in messaging, visuals, and experience and not just giving lip service. If you claim customer service is your most important differentiator, then return calls and emails in a reasonable amount of time and don’t leave people in an automated telephone maze to get the help they need. If you claim quality, you had better make sure your goods are up to snuff. No one likes to be lied to and no one likes when their experiences fall short of expectations. Apple's hip brand works because of their quality, design, and cutting-edge products that set trends and push the boundaries. They deliver on their brand promise.
2. Make your customer real
Determine your ideal customer and market to that person. Don't aim for some amorphous blob of people out there - make it about one customer (or a persona for all the different customers you serve) and pretend you are talking to that person. Know their likes, dislikes, where they live, where they work, what magazines they like to read. The more detail you can put around this picture, this persona, even if you have a few different customer groups, the more relevant and on-target your marketing and communications will be. When you try to reach everyone, you become relevant to no one because you are too generic and vanilla.
3. Invest your marketing dollars wisely
Only invest in marketing programs that make sense. Duh - this seems obvious, but don’t buy that booth at the show unless you know your potential customers will be there. Even if it costs just $200, it's a wasted $200 if the 5000 people in attendance will never buy your product. Do the research, ask the questions. Go where your customers are, don’t expect them to come to you just because you think it would be “cool” to be at that event or produce that radio spot. If your ideal customers don’t have time to watch TV, don’t invest in producing that ad.
4. Give meaning to your “look”
Work with a brand strategist or gifted designer who understands how placement, typography, and color all work together consciously and subconsciously to communicate a message. Ensure you really map out the message you wish to convey before you create the materials or graphic elements to convey it.
5. Give brand marketing a chance to work
People need to experience things multiple times before they stick. Be clear but be consistent – they need to see your message about 7 times before they remember it. The Nike swoosh did not create meaning overnight but Nike spent years and lots of money making that mark mean something to people. Don’t expect one ad to get you to your sales targets, or a website to get you all your customers. Branding is not the same as direct response marketing – it takes time and it should be integrated across all your customer touch points. Of course, if you need to course correct if it’s not working, you can do that, but don’t change it up every month – you may be sick of your own messaging after 2 months, but others will not have had a chance to absorb it. Do the work upfront to make sure your message is on target and stick with it.
6. Be realistic
If you can’t afford to produce luxury goods or services, don’t market them as such. People still need cheap, efficient, no-frills products and services on certain occasions. Just find your audience niche and market to them only what you can provide realistically to them specifically.
7. Create a style guide
When you design a website or a logo, ensure the designers leave you with a Style Guide that has all your colors used (in PMS, HEX, CMYK), font types and sizes, any copy guidelines (ie, we never use contractions, we use a very playful, snarky tone), layout guidelines, graphic guidelines (do we use photos or illustrations?) etc. This will help you maintain consistency when you either need to do things yourself or have others step in and make changes, do other projects, etc. This should be part of your operational guidelines and shared with any employees or partners who do visual/written work with you.
8. Understand trademark and copyright
Anything you put in a fixed form is automatically copyrighted by you, whether you file for the copyright or not, as long as you can prove when they were first used. This means copy, presentations or articles. But names or logos might need to be trademarked. If you come up with any branded product or service names, at least do an online trademark search at www.uspto.gov – this includes company name and taglines. Doesn’t mean you have to necessarily file for a trademark, but at least you will know what is already in use to avoid getting sued or being asked to cease and desist. And always consult a trademark lawyer on whether you should or should not trademark certain things. Better to spend some time and money to check up front on usage before investing lots of money on naming or design, only to be told to cease and desist by someone already using those things.
9. Keep the end in mind
When getting a logo designed, keep in mind how you will use it. This can save you money in the long run. Will it always be shown in digital format, or do you plan to print it out or place it on promotional items? This will help you determine if you need a 4-color logo or 2-color logo. It is often more expensive to print 4-color than 2-color or even black and white. Also, ensure you are using mostly standard PMS or CMYK colors so as to avoid needing to pay extra for custom print colors. And think about how your logo will show up at both big and small sizes. A very minutely detailed logo may not reproduce well on websites or in event programs at a very small size.
10. Use known analogies
If you are introducing something new or unfamiliar to your target audience, try to use analogies to help them make the connections more quickly. Take what it known and convey that meaning for quick comprehension. Here’s an excerpt from the fabulous book Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath:
“When the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) was trying to convey that movie popcorn was unhealthy, all their statistics and facts caused most people's eyes to glaze over. So the CSPI called a press conference on September 27, 1992. Here's the message it presented: "A medium-sized 'butter' popcorn at a typical neighborhood movie theater contains more artery-clogging fat than a bacon-and-eggs breakfast, a Big Mac and fries for lunch, and a steak dinner with all the trimmings — combined!"
The folks at CSPI didn't neglect the visuals — they laid out the full buffet of greasy food for the television cameras. An entire day's worth of unhealthy eating, displayed on a table. All that saturated fat stuffed into a single bag of popcorn.
The story was an immediate sensation.”
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