June 1, 2016
When you write a Facebook post, what are you thinking about at that moment? Are you thinking, “I want my readers to know this!”? Are you thinking, “We need to increase our call volume!”? Or possibly, “We need more Facebook Likes!”?
Or are you thinking, “Why have my followers chosen to Like me?” How about, “What are they interested in to which I can contribute?” “What will they share with their friends?”
The first set of questions are just about you and your business. The second set of questions puts the readers’ interests first. That’s the way to win over their hearts and minds (and business), certainly far better than the first set.
We call this “Outside-In” thinking, looking at your business from the outside-in. Unfortunately, too many marketers suffer from “Inside-Out” thinking, seeing things only from the inside, assuming that everybody is as excited about their business as they are.
The reasons you want to communicate with your prospects and customers are certainly going to be motivated by your business objectives. But what you say to them and how you say it has to come from what motivates them. For all your marketing communications, be it posts, tweets, blasts, banners, commercials or exhibit booths, you have to use your audience’s self-interest as your starting point. Merely posting about your new business/manufacturing facilities or listing a series of feature-based bullet points is not going to be appealing to their self-interest. (Would it be to yours if it came from, say, the local muffler store, especially if your car’s running smoothly?)
So what does your audience want to know? What excites and interests them? What’s good enough for them to share or pass along or even simply pay attention to? You need to ask that question with every marketing communication you generate.
This is one of the reasons we use a lot of humor or emotions in our own clients’ marketing, because good communication starts with human interest. Anything that makes a person laugh, smile, cry, wince or raise their eyebrows touches deeper human levels and transcends purely rational thinking.
Sponsoring contests, especially if they’re relevant to your message and brand – especially if the prize is big or unique – always has audience-appeal. Showing how your product or service solves your customers’ problems, eases their pain, saves them money or eliminates inconvenience, all speak to their self-interest.
Think of it this way, when you go fishing, what do you put on the hook: what you like or what the fish likes? It’s the same thing in marketing. Make sure the bait is what they like. You’ll like what happens next.
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Dan Katz is president, creative director of LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Dan on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com. You can also connect with Dan on LinkedIn. See agency work via this link.
May 20, 2014
As we all know, Pinterest and Instagram have become staples on the social media scene. The right visuals (from photos to quotes to inspirational messages) have great appeal and serve as motivation for many. With that in mind, here are some interesting visuals coupled with some content concerning marketing issues that face marketing teams almost daily as they work towards creating the change in the way people use and interact with their company’s products or services. Short, sweet and fun. Click away! 
The average attention span today is roughly 9 seconds…like that of a goldfish. Nine seconds to communicate a message, earn a little bit of loyalty, build a little bit of trust so you can continue the conversation before your customer starts getting distracted! So what could you possibly say in that time or less to get someone’s attention? It starts with presenting your message in clever and unexpected ways. It grabs people’s attention and has them focusing on the message and not thinking about the other stuff that could come into their mind. They’re engaged and captivated. In doing so, it allows you to persuade them, get them to trust you, get them to believe you, get them to want to connect with you. A shift in perspective from speaking about yourself to speaking from the audience’s point of view can be remarkably effective. Witness a beautiful commercial for a British online content company featuring a blind man whose original cardboard sign talks about himself, “I’m blind. Please help.” But when a caring passer-by changes the words to be more audience-focused, something powerful happens. The symbolism is powerful. To read more, click here.
Social media as a pathway to sales is almost certainly not going to work to the degree you want. There…I said it. While social media can be a valuable marketing tool, it’s not magic and it cannot and won’t replace everything that came before it. There’s no quick success and very few programs break through. Coca-Cola says it can find no correlation between “buzz” on Twitter and actual unit sales. Nissan admits it has no idea if social media helps it shift cars. MasterCard can’t tie its social investment to revenues. Don’t take my word for this. Go online and do your own research and see for yourself. In fact, there remains little evidence social media does anything to boost brands’ bottom lines. So then why use social media at all? The reason is that it is an impactful vehicle for empowering advocacy and we know that’s extremely important for brand health and profitability. Social media, if done right, can capitalize on what brand equity your company has already built up. To read more, click here.
When was the last time you/your marketing team asked the question “I wonder what would happen if we ________.”Crazy ideas have changed the way we go about living our lives. Knowing this, why is it that many marketers still don’t trust the crazy idea when it shows up unexpectedly especially, since crazy ideas, not safe ideas, are the game changers that propel companies forward? In today’s competitive, me-too world, if your product isn’t a legitimate leader in a category, it’s certainly a far better choice to come up with a new value story around your own product or service rather than trying to compete price-wise on the value that was generated by a competitor. You might want to be thinking about a crazy idea that will create a new meaning around your brand. Embrace that mindset so much so that the next time an idea is presented by your marketing department and someone outside of that department says “That’s a crazy idea,” you’ll say, “Thanks, we love it as well!” To read more, click here.
If you want to have passionate customers and dedicated partners, you must first inspire strong responses. But as you attract fans, you’re also bound to get the critics or “Haters.” It’s OK to have some folks (not too many, though) who will not like your brand. The undeniable reality is that if you’re not eliciting a negative response from someone somewhere, then you’re probably not that fascinating to anyone. Think about it, even Apple has Haters as does Starbucks and it hasn’t hurt them. Alternatively, you have the advocates, evangelists, loyalist…the Lovers. They don’t just buy your product or service, they also accept price increases and forgive occasional “issues.” They’re loyal and not just buying your products for price or utility. In the middle are the Lukewarmers. They have a really bad habit of not caring. They won’t buy your product unless it’s the cheapest or most convenient option which means they’re only buying you until a cheaper or more convenient alternative comes around. In today’s marketplace, this middle ground is death!! Not caring is not buying. Not caring is inaction. The world is not changed by people who sort of care or don’t care at all. Stop focusing on the Lukewarmer. Start by having your marketing and advertising be imaginative, original and fresh. To read more, click here.
Having dealt with all sorts of companies and people, I believe the Number One reason for boring “vanilla” marketing messages is the result of trying to please all the people all the time. Fighting the desire to be all things to all people lets you: 1. Stand out from the herd; 2) Attract the like-minded; and 3) Create stronger connections. Vanilla brands might not have enemies, but they also don’t have passionate advocates whose enthusiasm spreads. In order to win the race, you can’t stand still. Vanilla marketing is standing still. To stand out, to be different, to be memorable, takes boldness. It takes being “a real Marketer”. So, however you go about it, stop defaulting to dishing out plain vanilla marketing and start scooping out interesting flavors (think “Cherry Garcia”; “Chubby Hubby”; or “Chunky Monkey”, etc.) that stand out and are uniquely your own. To read more, click here.
So there you have it. 5 visuals that speak to different marketing challenges and opportunities. Maybe these visuals will stick with you for awhile and even change the way that certain projects, campaigns and programs are developed and executed. Seeing is believing.
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Rolf Gutknecht is vice president, director of account services for LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Rolf on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com. You can also connect with Rolf on LinkedIn.
March 4, 2014
I was having lunch with a friend who is well-respected and recognized in the advertising industry (age of “Mad Men”), when we both started reciting well-known marketing/advertising quotes and how there are as relevant today as they were 40 to 60 years ago. Unfortunately, too many marketing director types immediately dismiss these pearls of marketing wisdom because they think “that was then and this is now.” The problem with that type of thinking is that these people are doomed to make the same mistakes over and over again because they don’t get one important fact: marketing has the same challenges as it did years ago which, in short, is the need to differentiate your message from competitors so people buy your product or do business with you. It’s we just have a lot more channels to contend with today.
So, here are five famous marketing/advertising quotes, with a few thoughts on how they relate to your efforts, whether you’re a social media manager, content marketer, or advertiser:
1. “The truth isn’t the truth until people believe you, and they can’t believe you if they don’t know what you’re saying, and they can’t know what you’re saying if they don’t listen to you, and they won’t listen to you if you’re not interesting, and you won’t be interesting until you do and say things imaginatively, originally, freshly.” – Bill Bernbach
My all-time favorite advertising/marketing quote because it really goes to the heart of getting your product or company’s message recognized and acted upon. If you believe what Mr. Bernbach says, and frankly, how can you not, then the whole idea of developing uninspiring, status-quo, “beige” marketing messaging should never be settled for again…ever. Why put forth the effort of creating something that becomes largely invisible to your audience? This quote goes hand in hand with another Bernbach quote: “You can say the right thing about a product and nobody will listen. You’ve got to say it in such a way that people will feel it in their gut. Because if they don’t feel it, nothing will happen.”
2. “When you reach for the stars you might not quite get one, but you won’t come up with a handful of mud either.” – Leo Burnett
I’ve worked both on the agency side as well as the client side and to this date, I’m still shocked at how often the client thinks so little about the growth opportunities for their product or service, while the agency thinks that the product or service is just the “cat’s meow.” Don’t be an “Eeyore-type.” Think big! While there’s also something to be said for having realistic expectations about what you can achieve, there’s nothing wrong with having big dreams and aiming to make them a reality. If you aim a little higher you might just find yourself achieving things that you might not have thought possible.
3. “Why keep a dog and bark yourself?” – David Ogilvy
If you’ve decided that working with a marketing firm is going to help you communicate your value proposition in ways and forms that you otherwise might not have come up with, then believe in the abilities of those you’ve entrusted to do this and step away from playing copywriter or art director. Yes, you’ll know your product much better than the agency in the same way the agency knows how to communicate it to the marketplace much better than you. In short, collaborating is a good thing. Dictating to your marketing partner, well, that’s not how to get the best work done.
4. “I’d rather apologize than to be so timid as to never try and do anything smart or brave.” – Lee Clow
Lee, who created legendary advertising ranging from Apple Computer’s “Think Different” to the Energizer Bunny to Taco Bell’s Chihuahua to California Cooler, knows of which he speaks. The reason these brands became megabrands is because they recognized good work and weren’t afraid, yes, unafraid, to put it out there for the world to embrace. They rejected the status quo. While your company might not ever become a megabrand, it certainly has in it the ability to fascinate your audience more than it does now and in doing so make your competitors say “Why didn’t we think of that!”
5. “On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.” – David Ogilvy
The headline or title of your ad, blog post, collateral piece, Twitter post, YouTube video, etc., is the most effective way to get people to give you the 8 seconds of attention that you want before the reader decides to move on to something else. In short, the purpose of your headline is to get people to read your first line. The purpose of your opening line is to get people to read the next one. If you don’t embrace – and more importantly, implement – this principle, you’re going to miss out on a lot of readers. Employ headlines that stop the prospective customer. Don’t let it be anything but scintillating.
OK, I was going to stop at 5 but I thought of five more quick ones that really should be on anyone list of remembered marketing & advertising quotes:
“The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife.” – David Ogilvy
“Rules are what the artist breaks; the memorable never emerged from a formula.” – Bill Bernbach
“Creativity may well be the last legal unfair competitive advantage we can take to run over the competition.” – Dave Trott
“Stopping advertising to save money is like stopping your watch to save time.” – Henry Ford
“Don’t tell me how good you make it; tell me how good it makes me when I use it.” – Leo Burnett
So take these inspirational quotes to heart and make your advertising and marketing ancestors proud! If you want your brand and products to get more noticed in today’s media-saturated world, you might not have to look any further than the original Mad Men and marketing legends. Their legends for a reason!
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Rolf Gutknecht is vice president, director of account services for LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Rolf on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com. You can also connect with Rolf on LinkedIn.
February 19, 2014
As I write this, my house is in complete disarray. We have a contractor tearing up my girls’ old bedrooms and converting them into a guestroom and an art studio for my wife. It isn’t pretty…but soon will be. As I walk past the tarp and power tools and stepladders, I’m so appreciative that there are people whom I can call on who know how to do this with an assured and desirable outcome. I use experts to prepare my taxes, to check under my engine, to tell me my cholesterol is too high. I leave the do-it-yourself projects to things that have very low consequences if I screw it up.
Marketing is not a low-consequence endeavor. If it doesn’t succeed, company fortunes and employee livelihoods are at risk. And yet, for too many companies, marketing continues to be a do-it-yourself project.
It doesn’t take an expert to see the results of this by simply flipping through the pages of any newspaper or magazine. Home-made ads are usually the ones you ignore, are plainly designed (or far worse) without style or a fresh point of view. The same goes for websites, Facebook pages, direct mail, radio commercials and company brochures.
D-I-Y is pervasive – but hardly ever persuasive!
We get inquiries all the time from businesses who have been creating their home-made ads and realize that the outcomes haven’t been what they’d wish for. But just as quickly, they pull back, fearful of relinquishing control and suffering sticker shock when they compare the cost of their D-I-Y efforts to professional services. What they’re missing is that by spending money for professional objectivity, expertise and talent, they dramatically increase the chances of their marketing actually having serious bottom-line impact.
The results of making the leap from D-I-Y to seeking out professional help can be dramatic. I’ve seen countless times sizable changes in traffic, sales and inquiries that resulted from putting the marketing in the hands of experts who excel in that craft. That’s how after 20 years, some businesses become overnight successes!
And by “experts,” I’m not talking about letting the shop that designed your banners or flyers design an ad. They’re experts in quick print projects. They’re not a marketing firm or an advertising agency whose portfolio of work comes with recognizable brands; as a result they don’t know how to help you build a long-term competitive position in the marketplace. Nor am I talking about brother Bernie’s kid who took two semesters of computer graphics and makes rock band t-shirt designs.
Every town has ad agencies and marketing firms who can provide you the ideal strategic guidance and talent required to make a difference. As you know, they come in just about every flavor, from one-man shops to multi-floor mega-agencies. Selecting the right company is a matter of chemistry, portfolio, history of success and their desire to win your business. It’s no different than choosing an accountant, contractor or garage mechanic. Price is a factor, but should never be the deciding factor – any more than seeking out the cheapest physician when you’re worried about internal bleeding. (Remember, it’s your company’s life on the line.)
Here are some tips in selecting a marketing provider (or better yet, a marketing partner!):
- Look at their work. Does it surprise you? Would it stop you if you were to stumble across it? Will you remember it an hour later?
- Ask how they would approach your business, learn about your audiences and develop strategies to attract new business. This is especially important if they don’t have your specific category in their client roster.
- Ask how they’ve handled similar marketing challenges in the past.
- Look for a range of client types and industries. Good ideas cross-pollinate. On the other hand, one-industry agencies limit how far you can go because they’re always reaching into the same old bag of tricks.
- Ask for references, and then follow-up. Ask their references if the company is easy to work with, do they listen, how do they deal with failures (’cause they happen even to the best of brands), and how responsive they are to requests and changes.
Just remember, success isn’t about your being able to do everything or know everything. It’s about being able to find the very best resources to complement what you do and know.
That’s why I know when to run to Home Depot myself and when to call on the guys who are ripping out the girls’ closets right about now.
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Rolf Gutknecht is vice president, director of account services for LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Rolf on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com. You can also connect with Rolf on LinkedIn.
May 20, 2013
The year is 1913. The automobile is more than a novelty by this time. It is here to stay, and already, in the big cities, cars are beginning to outnumber horses on the major thoroughfares. Every young and growing family of any means has one of these contraptions. And the Ford Motor Company is pumping these babies out as fast as his factory will allow. In fact, if you’re Henry Ford, in 1913, you can’t imagine that ANYONE would want to be without a car, given its obvious speed, convenience and ability to vastly improve commerce.
But that same year, anyone who is over 50 has grown up with the horse and buggy and they are far from abandoning the most dependable and affordable form of transportation there is. Out in the countryside, they’re even more locked in to the old ways. Of course, they’re all a dying breed – literally – and one day, maybe in another decade or two, Mr. Ford will be right. But in the meantime, it still pays to be a blacksmith.
The year is 2013. Social Media is more than a novelty. And the digital universe will continue to play a growing role in how one makes choices in every area. But there’s a market divide here as well: those under 50 who, growing up, depended on television and now the Internet as their major information sources, and those over 50 who grew up with newspapers, books and encyclopedias, news magazines, radio and eight channels of TV to inform their world view. Those gray-haired Baby Boomers and pre-Boomers aren’t ready to give up the old medium forms or use the full potential of Internet the way their younger counterparts are. They still rely on traditional media and the power of face-to-face relationships to form their opinions. It’s how they’re hard-wired, even though many Boomers and older seniors may have Facebook accounts and smart phones.
For the visionary marketer under the age of 50, little wonder that he or she sees the future the way Henry Ford did in 1913. Soon, EVERYBODY will be wired, interactive, and engaged in the multiplicity of online touch points.
But whoa! If you’re reaching buyers over 50, which is the absolutely dominant market for health care, retirement living, destination travel, hospice care and funeral services, it still pays to know how to shoe horses!
I spoke last week to a senior services industry group, most of whom were Boomers or older, and they were very clear on the fact that for the next decade at least, Boomers and the older generations will remain the primary target audience. In fact, it was fascinating to note how many of these industry professionals struggled to understand how to use Facebook. Well, they’re over 50, just like their buyers!
If you’re under 50, you might chuckle at these old codgers and say their ways are fast coming to a close. But do remember, if you’re selling anything to Baby Boomers and older, these old-school marketers are more on-target than you are.
Young emerging marketing directors need to know how to employ the technological and social changes that are underway. But if you’re marketing to Boomers and older, automotively speaking, this is still 1913, not 1930. The changes that should be happening right now aren’t so much about how to use Facebook and Twitter but how to speak to the Baby Boomer better, understand their culture better, speak their language better and show up where they are. That means more relevant branding, more choices of products and services, adroit use of surprise, humor and respectful irreverence in marketing, and the avoidance of anything that reeks of clichés and stock or traditional messages.
Visionary thinking is wonderful, but while you’re looking well down the path, it pays to watch where your very next step will be as well.
