Marketing Sherpa recounts a challenge faced by Ariad Custom Communications.  In a focus group consisting of their longest term marketing clients, they were asked why they so strongly suggest the use of custom email newsletters when they don’t use one themselves.  Hmmmmm …. good question.  Wisely, they agreed with the implication of the question and decided to create a newsletter for their clientele.  Instead of jumping into the blindly, they thoroughly researched their competition and clearly defined the needs of their target audience.

A key point in their assessment:

“In the battle for reader eyeballs, every [marketing piece] should realize
they’re competing against every possible information source in every
media… Competition isn’t about your format or
business model; it’s about [the consumer’s] time and attention.”

We would even take this observation a step further.  The consumer’s time and attention is focused on the small, and sometimes fleeting, “needs” in their lives … and these needs may actually be temporary, passionate “wants”.  For convertible sportscar salespeople: Today, the consumer will VERY likely not need custom alloy wheels, but they may feel they “need” to have the wind whipping through their hair.

For all six billion people on the planet, these ephemeral needs come and go through our daily lives like getting small rocks in your shoe during a hike.  They wear on you to the point where you feel compelled to stop for a short break to take the rock out.

As business owners, it’s our job to figure out what is the proverbial “rock in the shoe” of our clients.  The task is not to sell them a better pair of rock-resistant shoes or a new skin padding system!  If you do THAT, you’re clearly not understanding the needs of the clients.  Find a way to remove that rock and you’ll have a lifetime customer.

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Here’s an age test. Raise your hand if you remember the animated Tootsie Roll Pop Commercial where the little boy goes up to the wise owl and asks “how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?”. The owl says “let’s see” and counts out as he licks …. “uh one, uh two, uh thrrrreeee” CRUNCH “Three”. Admit it, if you remember the commercial you’re smiling right now, yes?!

I saw this commercial on cable television YESTERDAY!!! This really threw me and begs several questions … Does a great brand always have to reinvent itself? Can a generations old company like Tootsie Roll Industries effectively use an old standby commercial from the 1960s and have it be just as effective with today’s market? My vote is YES! The beauty of that commercial is that it’s tight, it’s simple, it’s memorable and it oozes well implemented humor.

The next big picture question would be “can a great commercial or a great marketing idea really become timeless?” The world may never know.

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Years ago I read a bit by Tom Peters where he talked about giving employees “standards” instead of job titles or even descriptions of tasks.  If you give a person a standard by which to work, they can invent the process on their own AND will be more apt to succeed at achieving the goal.  At Acorn Creative’s most recent Monday morning meeting, I set the standard that project managers are NOT immediately responsible for creative design, web development or brand strategy development … their first and foremost duty is to “make sure the customer is happy“.  Now THAT’S a standard!   Will they succeed in achieving this?  Let’s knock on wood.  If they do (and they already do a great job), then we have few, if any, problems in the near future.

Similarly, Seth Godin asks “How much do you care?” with a revealing snapshot of two bathrooms in New York.  Clearly one attendant is working with a higher standard than the other. They’re probably both being paid roughly the same and they both likely think they’re doing their job.  Big difference in results, don’t you think?

Sooo, what standards are YOUR people using to measure their success.

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This morning’s post by Seth Godin (Where are the tweakers) asks an interesting question of why there are no companies or services that take existing websites and “tweak” them to make them a little better.  After personally building over 350 websites in the past 15 years, I can very comfortably say why I don’t take on this task.  The art of fiddling with a site is hard enough when the code is what you developed on your own.  When faced with fiddling with other people’s (mostly garbage) code, the task becomes daunting.  It’s usually easier to chuck the whole mess and rebuild from scratch … even if the look and feel of the site remains the same.

However, there is hope on the horizon.  Lead by pioneers like Jeffrey Zeldman, there has been a movement for quite a while to move website design to a “Standards Based” (W3C Complient) system of completely separating aesthetics and form with content.  To see how miraculous this can be, visit www.CSSZenGarden.com.  In the right had column of the default page, there’s a list of other designs, click on them to see what happens to the look and feel of the site.  Understand that ALL of these designs are using the same content … in fact, the exact same HTML page!  The only thing that’s required to modify the look and feel is to point to a different style sheet.

So, how would this help in Seth’s quest to have control over tweaking and A-B testing??  I’m thinking the results would go …. sorry about this folks …. TO THE MOON!  (groan)

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Want to watch your organization (company, product, service, self) find the quickest way to obsolescence and failure? All you have to do is ignore the masses.

For a great example, read Seth Godin’s commentary on Ford.

Another example; You could be like the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and try to stifle P2P file sharing and individual downloads with lawsuits and bully tactics OR you could be like Apple’s iTunes and embrace the new way young people want to experience and share music. iTunes, by the way, is passing its 1.5 Billionth download. Get a clue RIAA!! … times, they are a changin’.

Let’s be fair here. Delivering a bug riddled, poorly designed product doesn’t help you find the path to success either. Apple’s latest version of iTunes is getting A LOT of bad press. Google News “iTunes” to see what I mean.

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If you attend expos and tradeshows as part of your marketing strategy, are you creating an “end user experience”??? And, NO, handing out business cards with a squish ball doesn’t count. If not, you’re not optimizing your opportunity for success at the event!

At the fall VON convention, we witnessed HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of vendors from all over the world come to Boston to pitch their wares. Just the space rental on a 10×10 booth alone was $6500 … no small price tag! At the event we saw (no exageration):

• Dozens of booths with a single person sitting in a chair waiting for people to come up to them and ask questions.
• Booth graphics with literally dozens of bulleted, acronym riddled services in 8 point font.
• Booths with no visual graphic support … just text.
• Tchotchke HELL. There were fewer than 10 booths that had something other than: pens, blinking doo dads, squishy balls or candy.

This was MILLIONS of dollars of lost opportunity. If you’re going to spend that much money on an event, plan to take FULL benefit of the audience. Folks, these are warmed up, ready to buy, prospective customers walking within feet of you. Your booth should grab them and drag them across the room - metaphorically.

Here’s a test for your next trade show. Watch people as they walk down the aisle coming towards you. They’ll glance up at the booths (avoiding eye contact with the people) and will casually walk slowly enough to “absorb” information. They’re searching … searching for services and products that interest them. As they walk by your booth, do they continue this slow scanning walk? OR, do they behave as if they’ve encountered something different? …. something worthy of a few seconds more. Better yet, do they actually stop at your booth after they’ve passed others by? Is your booth always filled with people? If not, you need to work on your “end user experience.”

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Let me say “wheeewwwwww”. I’ve been at conventions for two of the last three weeks. Although it’s good to be back to catch up on some much needed sleep, it’s also a great time to reflect on these experiences.

The Fall VON Expo was (as usual) a miraculous, whirlwind, technology extravaganza. Put on by Jeff Pulver of Pulver Media (think former Vonage guy), the event was BIG, impressive and a lot of fun. Held at the new Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, the event was spacious, clean, well run and …. did I say “big” already?

The Acorn Creative team has spent the past few months helping Iperia to plan for this event, including the development of all booth graphics, coming up with a tradeshow theme — a virtual reality home run derby — and polishing off all the presentation stuff; portal demo interface, tchotchke, pocket folders, sell sheets, screen savers, etc., etc. The theme this year was BASEBALL. Tied directly to the “Always Here”, warm and fuzzy, customer service idea behind the Iperia brand, the graphics of the booth took viewers back to the simple times when they were kids. Like James Earl Jones said in the movie “Field of Dreams”, “there’s always been a constant in our lives”… baseball has marked the passing of time.

Because the folks at VON had a last minute cancellation of a 20×30 booth (instead of the 20×20 that Iperia was planning), the booth could now accomodate a Hot Dog Cart. Our thinking was that the smell of the free Hebrew National Hot Dogs was another sensory layer to support the experience. What we didn’t expect was the HUGE success the cart would be among the attendees. Of course, it didn’t hurt that the food court services were charging an arm and a leg for mediocre food…. The price of the dog was a swipe of the attendee’s ID card.

As people were standing in line (over 1200 of them), it became an opportunity to answer people’s questions about Iperia services AND invite them over to view the demo.

Bottom line: Names collected for follow up were increased three fold and the number of demo presentations doubled. It’s these activities that are the precursors to new business relationships … it’s WHY we attend trade shows, yes?

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