Making Marketing Happen Blog

The previous post discussed how marketing campaigns that are inspired by company visions are not prevalent these days. A company vision is a business’ forward-thinking declaration of its aspirations for the future.

“Promote Your Company Vision – Part I” provided tips for how to market your company vision as a means of promoting your brand, attracting and retaining customers and differentiating your business. Here are two more marketing tips:

Bring It to Life

The saying “a pictures is worth a thousand words” conveys the notion that complex ideas can be conveyed more easily with images. That adage definitely applies to company visions. Video is a fantastic tool to use for this purpose.

Videos are less expensive to produce than they use to be. They are easily to distribute via YouTube, Vimeo and other video sharing platforms and they go viral faster than most any other medium. Why not create a company video that captures your company’s vision for the future?

Interviews are one approach to take. You can film executives sharing how the company vision guides their business decisions. You can also feature employees discussing how they are personally inspired by the vision.

Some corporations have the financial ability to produce high-end films that portray a world in which the companies’ visions have become a reality. Here are two superb examples of company visions brought to life via videos.

The first is by Corning, the world leader in specialty glass and ceramics. It is called “A Day Made of Glass.”

The second video campaign is by Honda. It consists of a series of short documentaries titled “Dream the Impossible.” This dream-based thematic complements Honda’s current vision-inspired tagline, “Powered by Dreams.”

Talk About It

Your company has a vision for a better future that it wants to help shape. Get out and tell the world about it! Does your business have an evangelist or executive on staff whose job it is to share this message? Have him/her blog and tweet in support of the vision. Create a speaker series and arrange for executives or evangelists to give lectures or participate on panels about relevant topics.

Are there other experts in the market whose research or interests support your company’s vision? Hold a series of webcasts or in-person events featuring these subject matter experts. Record the talks and then package them as podcasts. Put the podcasts on your website and market them to existing and prospective customers.

Actively promoting your business’ vision will give the public greater insight into the essence of your company. People who find your company vision compelling will have another reason to believe in your brand and become loyal customers.

A company vision sets a business apart from all others. What is a company vision? It is a business’ forward-thinking declaration of its aspirations for the future. It is the image it has of its goals before plans are laid out for how to achieve them. Company visions often are a declaration of a business’ desire to innovate and change its market for the better.

The vision is also a foundational component of a company’s brand. The most compelling ones inspire employees and endure as a business grows. Yet, many businesses don’t actively communicate their visions. Companies that don’t promote their visions are missing a marketing opportunity.

Why do it? A business that actively promotes its vision is positioning itself as a thought leader and innovator in its market. Touting its vision is also a great way for a business to differentiate itself from it competition.

If a company doesn’t have one, it should write a vision statement. Once that is done, it is time to share it with the world. The following are suggestions of ways that a company can market its corporate vision.

Unbury It

Many businesses have their company vision statements listed on their websites. But the statements are usually buried somewhere deep in the site’s “About” or “Company” sections. Liberate your vision statement! Highlight it in appropriately-placed callout boxes. Or go for the gusto and place the vision on the home page so that every visitor can easily grasp the business’ reason for being.

Does your company produce an annual report? Incorporate the vision into the CEO’s letter to shareholders. Have executives discuss it at the annual shareholder meeting. If your company publishes a newsletter, include mention of the vision in it. As progress is made, write articles and updates about it.

Incorporate It into Your Tagline

A tagline is a means of communicating a brand-based message. It should be changed over time as a business evolves. Taglines are another way to promote a company’s vision. This strategy is especially appropriate if a company’s marketing objective is to establish itself as the thought leader in its category.

Some examples of past and present vision-inspired taglines are: “Think Different” (Apple), “Imagination at Work” (General Electric), “The World’s Networking Company” (AT&T), “The Power of Dreams,” (Honda) “The Next Stage” (Wells Fargo) and “The Power of Human Energy” (Chevron). Can you think of others?

The next post will provide additional ways for companies to promote their unique visions.

With all of the announcements that came out of the Customer Electronics Show, product launches have been getting a lot buzz in the tech world this month. And for foodies, this past weekend was very much about the new delectables that were tasted at the Fancy Food Show. Whatever the product is being launched, the public only sees the outcome. But as so many of us marketers know, pulling off a successful product launch is not an easy feat.

There are numerous pieces to the launch puzzle that all need to fall into place in time for the big announcement and first customer shipment. Much of a product launch’s fate is determined in the early planning stages. Rest assured, you can put your launch on solid footing by following eight “must haves” when planning a product launch.

1. Have a clear launch strategy, launch plan and budget. Metrics are mandatory. It all should be approved, and ultimately owned, by a senior executive.

2. Have a strong, capable and communicative cross-functional core team. The team should be comprised of people representing each department or functional area that has launch responsibilities. Meet regularly. Make each person accountable.

3. Have a comprehensive project management plan. Include tactics and deliverables, ownership of the deliverables and corresponding due dates. Track the status.

4. Have a messaging platform. The platform needs to be blessed by management. Make sure it is consistently incorporated into all customer-facing deliverables, such as the packaging, website, PR and ads, as well as all customer sales and support interactions.

5. Have a product that is delivered to market on time. If for some reason the product turns out not to be capable of doing all that the messaging says it can do, the messaging needs to be adjusted.

6. Have a “worst case scenario” backup plan. Mitigate risk.

7. Have an executive sponsor who is accountable for the launch. The buck needs to stop somewhere.

8. Have some fun. Driving to a major deadline is stressful. Fun eases the stress.

Launching a product is a complex undertaking and no two launch experiences are ever the same.  Follow these eight principles and your product launch will be off to a stellar start.

With social media all the buzz, and Facebook at the heart of the social networking storm, many companies that have not yet created a presence on Facebook are feeling escalating pressure to do so.

I’ve talked to some clients who are haunted by the fear that, since their companies are not on Facebook, they must be missing out on something. But they have no idea what that “something” is. Here’s some advice. Don’t rush to put up a page because everyone else is doing it.

True, Facebook charges nothing, it doesn’t take much time to create a starter business page and adding the Facebook widget to your company’s website is simple. But the setup is the easy part. What you really need to decide is if having a page on Facebook is going to help you grow your business and is worth the investment of time and resources.

Facebook is a platform that enables 500+ million people to connect with trusted friends. It also is a forum for people to talk about themselves and share their likes and dislikes. Here’s the thing. Not every product or service is something that people want to publicly talk about. There are lots of things that people would never consider associating themselves with on Facebook.

I recommend using this evaluation criteria to help you decide whether your company should be on Facebook:

1. First off, you need a strategy for how you are going to incorporate Facebook into all your other marketing activities and drive traffic to your page. “Build it and they will come” is not a strategy.
2. Have concrete objectives. Is a Facebook presence intended to attract, acquire or retain customers for your business?
3. Are your target customers on Facebook? Are they more likely to be using another social media platform instead, like Twitter? Or, maybe you sell to a segment, like elderly seniors, that has not taken to social media?
4. Take a good look in the mirror. Is what your company sells something that people will gladly talk about on their personal pages and suggest to their friends? If you sell products to businesses, are your customers really going to want to overlap their work lives and their personal lives on their Facebook pages?
5. Make sure that you can commit the time and resources to build and evolve the business page. Posts and comments should be responded to promptly. Do you have the staff to do this ongoing work?
6. Come up with a plan for how to build community and get people to like your company’s page. A business page without any likes or fans is a lonely place and can be a turn-off to the customers you are hoping to attract.
7. Get comfortable with the reality that you don’t control your business page. Your company will invest time and money creating and maintaining it and, without any warning, Facebook can change the business page template, as they just did last week. Surprise!
8. Know that any contests, competitions or other marketing activities you run have to comply with Facebook’s promotional guidelines. This isn’t a bad thing. You just need to realize that you are not free to do anything you’d like. Facebook sets the rules.

We are in a consumer-driven world where engaging and participating with customers offline and online is essential to achieve customer satisfaction and spark word of mouth referrals. Facebook is helping a lot of companies do that and more. But, while Facebook is well-suited for many businesses, it is not necessarily a worthwhile marketing endeavor for all types of companies. Just think about it.

Sometimes you read an article that includes so many excellent points that it must be shared. If you are interested in email marketing best practices, I have come across just such an article.

It recognizes that many companies don’t take advantage of the most obvious email marketing touchpoints, such as sending automated welcome messages to new subscribers. In fact, according to Listrak, only 1% of retailers on the Internet Retailer 500 actually employ such emails!

Whether it’s sending personalized messages, first-time buyer offers, relevant product offers based on past buying behavior, or post-purchase thank you messages, these are email best practices that companies should implement  because they deliver proven results.

Read A Soup to Nuts List of Email Marketing Touchpoints and let me know your take on it.

Have you heard? Last week Gap Inc. quietly debuted a new logo for its leading store brand. But these days, with the internet bully pulpit available to all, changes as significant as that one don’t stay quiet for long. Gap customers took a look and the resulting outcry echoed across Facebook, Twitter and beyond.

The posts on Gap’s Facebook page make it clear that people did not like the “updated” interpretation of the Gap logo. A classic, international icon had been desecrated and the public let management know it.

What happened next? Close to end of business today, the Gap did an about face and announced that it is keeping its 20+ year old iconic brand, as is. The customer spoke loudly and the company listened. Bravo to the Gap for being responsive to its customers. Some people accused Gap of engineering a publicity stunt. We’re assuming that what transpired was a gaffe and not ploy. So, what could have been done to avoid this episode, which is all too reminiscent of the New Coke debacle?

This post is not about whether the new, but soon-to-be-history, logo was brilliantly designed, or whether it was something that any of us could create in PowerPoint using Helvetica font in less than five minutes. Instead, it’s about the realities of brand management today and how Gap’s team could have made the logo project a positive experience for the company and its customers.

This episode confirms that brands matter to people. Brands are intangibles that live in customers’ minds. Consumers are very passionate about brands whose promises they believe in and they can feel a sense of ownership for those brands.

Gap’s actions show that their team hadn’t fully realized that brand management today is about consumer engagement and participation. The days of one way communication are over for established brands. By changing the Gap logo and then unveiling it to the public, Gap’s one way communication path ran straight into a brick wall. Then the internet amplified the negative response into a loud roar. The brand was tarnished and the company was scrambling.

Gap should have incorporated its customer network into the company’s internal logo discussion. It missed an opportunity to gain more evangelists by publicly soliciting customer input about the Gap’s updated logo concepts early on.

At last count, the Gap has 722,402 people liking it on Facebook and 35,618 following it on Twitter. The company should have used social media platforms to dialogue with its customers openly about its logo plans, and gained their feedback long before it was launched. Had they done so, Gap management would have had a better gauge of the public’s response and could have redirected, or aborted, the logo update process.

Brands are defined by how well a company responds to moments of truth. Gap just lived one of those moments. Consumers and their cash will determine how well Gap’s management handled this marketing mess.

Many small businesses have so much to do to keep their operations humming that before they know it a few years have gone by and their websites are out-of-date.

Whether the website’s content is stale, its navigation is clunky or its look and functionality are from before the social media era, the site is likely not helping the brand’s appeal and may even be tainting the company’s all-so-important first impression.

It’s true that refreshing a website can seem like a daunting undertaking. But don’t fall victim to website paralysis. Rest assured that a few straightforward preliminary steps can put the project on the right path.

Before beginning the search for a web agency, designer or developer, businesses should implement these five steps:

1. Print out every page from the existing website.

2. Read each page carefully. Highlight the text that is still current. Strike out the messaging that is no longer relevant. Identify the blocks of content that are missing.

Takeaway: This step provides an initial feel for the amount of new content and number of new pages that will be needed, as well as what should be eliminated.

3. Review the site’s web analytics reports. What pages are visitors viewing? How much time are they spending on each one? What critical content should they be reading that they are not? Is the site producing the desired conversion actions?

Takeaway: Determining what areas of the current site are appealing to visitors will help decide what sections to keep and expand upon and what sections to revise or retire.

4. Determine the business’ objectives for the website. Is it awareness? Lead generation? Closing sales? Or, is it some other type of conversion?

Takeaway: The refreshed site should be designed to meet the organization’s goals. Decide what those goals are before the project gets underway.

5. Select up to three audiences that the refreshed site will be targeting. Build a profile of those target segments, including age, gender, income levels, likes and dislikes and why they buy the product or service.

Takeaway: Design and develop the website with the target visitors in mind.  Craft messages that speak to their needs and interests and they are likely to want to learn more.

Once the five preliminary steps are completed, the organization will have assessed its current site and started scoping the new site. This information will be very helpful to use during the web developer vetting process. Now it’s time to contact those agencies.

FVEZG3R6TXXX  <— Those digits may look like a typo, but they’re not. What appears to be the output of a keyboard gone awry is actually supposed to be placed exactly where it is. Why? The answer is the topic of this blog post.

If you are a blogger, you want your posts to be read by an audience that is interested in the topics you write about. However, for your blog to be read, first it must be found. A lot of time and resources are spent on SEO for conventional search engines, like Google. Don’t forget that there are also blog search engines, among others, that can route traffic to your site. But they operate differently. To be added to most blog search engines’ directories, you must “claim” your blog or “verify” its ownership.

Unfortunately, not all blog search engines use the same authentication process. The following is a brief tutorial on how to set your blog up on some of the top blog search engine directories: Technorati, IceRocket, BlogCatalog and Google Blog Search.

Technorati, one of the most popular search engines for blogs, is the reason this post starts off the way it does. The jumble of text and numbers in the first paragraph is actually the claim code that Technorati issued for this blog. After joining and setting up a profile, Technorati asks each blogger to put the blog’s claim code into its feed and at the beginning of a post. It’s to remain there until Technorati checks it and adds the blog to its directory.

BlogCatalog gives you one of three ways to demonstrate ownership of your blog. After signing up for a free account and setting up a profile, the blogger is asked to verify ownership by: (1) linking to BlogCatalog from your blog roll, (2) embedding meta tag code in your blog page or (3) adding one of their widgets to your blog.  I chose option #2. A member of BlogCatalog’s team is supposed to review and validate each blog that’s been submitted within 24 – 48 hours. The clock has started ticking!

IceRocket, on the other hand, uses pings. First you submit your blog’s URL on IceRocket’s home page and then you add a link to the notification section of your blog’s content management system so that each time you author a new post (like this one), IceRocket knows about it and adds it to the directory.

Google Blog Search let’s bloggers manually submit their blogs each time there’s an update. This triggers a search  engine crawl. But why take the manual route when automation will make your life so much easier? Google Blog Search states that if a blog “publishes a site feed in any format and automatically pings an updating service, (Google Blog Search) should be able to find and list it.” If your blog is not set up with ping updating service yet, Google has its own for you to use.

Ok, let the blog searches begin!

The previous post highlighted how NOT to manage the email opt-out process. Yes, by law all companies are supposed to follow the CAN-SPAM rules. But that doesn’t mean that your business can’t try to win its email subscribers back.

Why not seize the opportunity and make the opt-out process a positive brand experience?  A company that does an excellent job of this is Groupon.

Groupon got creative. They make a clever attempt to retain the unsubscriber immediately after a person has clicked on the unsubscribe link. Groupon’s unsubscribe confirmation page reads “We’re sorry to see you go! How sorry? Well, we want to introduce you to Derrick – he’s the guy that thought you’d enjoy receiving the Daily Groupon email.” On the page the unsubscriber sees a video image and a button to click on that reads “Punish Derrick.”

When you click on it, you watch a short, funny video showing two employees supposedly squabbling about how you joined Groupon and then decided to leave. When the video ends you are asked if you “want to make it up to Derrick” and resubscribe.

I don’t know what Groupon’s resubscribe rate is, but the company seems to take life-cycle marketing really seriously. Or, someone with a good sense of humor came up with a clever idea and voila! Either way, Groupon’s marketers do a wonderful job of attempting to engage and retain their email subscribers, legally. See for yourself and then implement a re-subscribe appeal as part of your company’s email marketing campaigns. What do you have to lose?

Companies need to take the CAN-SPAM rules seriously.  If you’re not familiar with the law that governs email marketing, here is a summary of it. Back in 2003 Congress passed the CAN-SPAM Act. It sets the standards for bulk emails and commercial messages.  The central provisions are that the sender must provide the recipient with instructions on how to opt out from future communications and needs to “honor opt-out requests promptly.” (The FTC’s words, not mine.)

Legitimate organizations that don’t follow these rules risk seriously tarnishing  perception of their brands. I should know. I experienced an opt-out mini-saga with the US’s leading marketing association and it definitely changed my view of that group.

I went through the marketing organization’s email unsubscribe process THREE times and each time the confirmation page said that I had been unsubscribed successfully! Still, the promotional emails kept coming! It was only after I sent multiple emails directly to the support department that I was finally removed from the email list.

This association exists solely to educate marketers. But, what do you know? It turns out that they neither follow the law, nor practice what they preach to their students. This “do as I say, not as I do” episode has forever damaged my affinity for this brand.  I won’t be signing up for any of their marketing courses, ever!

The takeaway? Companies need to regularly check that their email opt-out processes are working properly. Is the opt-out server integrated with the list server? Does a script run automatically that removes names from the master list or re-tags them properly?  Companies that manage the opt-out process manually should access the removal list and pull the addresses from the master distribution lists at least twice a week and more often if they are frequent emailers.

People who keep receiving unwanted emails get annoyed. The last thing a company wants is for these recipients to mark their emails as “spam”. That can lead to the company being blacklisted by ISPs, an outcome that gets complicated and ugly. So, follow the rules and you will make marketing happen!

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