Marketing Ideas!

I’ve been at — and have consulted for — more than one company that wondered why their competitor seems to be winning all the new deals. Why all the praise seems to go their way. Rumor has it that they have really good customer service, but it’s really not that different from ours — is it?

To be honest, it may be difficult to see the forest through the trees, so you’ll have a tough time self-discovering if your customer service is up to snuff. But there is another way, and it won’t require hiring high-priced consultants or conducting surveys. But it might require a stop to a donut store or two…

While it might be next-to-impossible to assess your own organization, it is much easier to evaluate someone else’s. So my suggestion to you is to find another business — the more dissimilar to yours the better. In fact, the less you know about the business the better. For me, this meant going to a donut shop.

My youngest son plays t-ball, and after one of his games we decided to go to a donut store (Shipley’s Do-nuts on Brodie Lane) for a mini celebration. They were really busy, and parking was a bit of an issue. Once inside, the line was long, but moved at a good pace. We could see them making donuts through a glass window, which was good for the kids, but I was a little disappointed they didn’t carry my favorite type of donut (glazed chocolate cake). It was a little dirty, not a lot of table space, but overall, it wasn’t a terrible experience. But I began wondering if someone did it better. As it just so happens, there’s another donut shop directly across the street.

Parking was easier at the second donut shop (KC Donuts — I’d like to their site but there isn’t one). There was a line, but despite being shorter, moved slower. As it turned out, there was a lot of apologizing by the staff as people requested items that were sold out. This obviously slowed the line down as people had to find a new item. We didn’t see anyone making donuts — apparently this was done behind a closed door. Instead, people coming in the front door saw a sheet hanging over something … perhaps something under construction. There was no sign with an apology for the dust or explaination for the sheet. We couldn’t see the selection available, so we had to wait until we were up at the counter to order.

We did find that KC Donuts had a different selection (they did have my favorite donut, but there was only one left), and I opted for some items that I couldn’t get at the other shop: kolaches. While it turned out it was pretty cool to get something different, the kolache was doughy and the cheese was goopy (to be fair, apparently the sausage kolaches were very good, but they happened to be sold out of them while we were there).

The customer experience, as least for me, was significantly different. Even though KC Donuts has my favorite kind of donut, I was so unimpressed with the rest of the experience, I will probably not go back.

What do you gain from this experiement? You might see parallels on how your organization operates. Sure, you have have the one item your competition does not, but if you place enough barriers to accessing it, your prospects might give up, chosing to do business with your competitor instead. Use this as a way to evaluate similar experiences as new (or existing) customers come to do business with you. For example, how do you welcome your customers and prospect? Do they see the equivelant of a sheet over some construction?

Networking — the act of actually going out an meeting people face-to-face — is simply one of the most powerful marketing tools any person or organization can use. However, there is one issue with this tool: it’s not scalable.

A colleague and friend of mine runs his own business. This margins are thin and he has little to no help (i.e., employees). Thus, it’s hard for him to both run his business and look for new business at the same time. After talking through his specific situation, we were able to find a great solution for him: email marketing.

Email marketing, while never able to replace the face-to-face networking, can be a great supplement. It’s a great tool to help build virtual relationships with people. What’s a virtual relationship?

A virtual relationship is something that many of us have with Hollywood celebrities (or have had at some point in our lives). We see their image on the screen (movie or TV) and project feelings and situations about the person that are simply not there: we are engaging with a two dimensional image that is not human — but we perceive the image as a real person. Then, we we meet our favorite star at a local restaurant or event, we call them out by their first name and feel as though we already know them.

The star, of course, doesn’t know who we are, but because our celebrity as had some training and has likely experienced this before, reacts as though he or she does know you … which build their brand.

Email marketing works in much the same way. It is a way for people to see your ideas interact with you on some level, and when done well, can feel personal and sincere. For my colleague, email marketing will serve as an augmentation to his normal networking efforts. It can replace several simple meetings with his existing clients and serve as additional touch points for prospects he just met. All the while, he can continue to build his brand, maintain the same personal service he’s known for, and scale his business to the point where he can hire new help.

One of my favorite ads running on television right now are from State Farm. Think about this: there are at least four national insurance companies that are fighting over “low cost:” Progressive, Gieco, Allstate, eSurance. If you see one of their ads, you are being pitched with the ubiquitous “save time and money.”

But not State Farm. They have delivered a series of ads that hint that you may not always be getting what you are buying. In the example below, the hot dog vendor sells hot dogs, but no bun. Others spots have popsicle, no stick; a car wash, no rinse; a shoe shine, but not shoes shine (he only does one). In other words, price isn’t everything. It may be worth paying a little more to make sure you get what you want.

I bring this up because it can be so easy to argue on points your competition brings up, especially when the point (such as spending money) is important to your potential customers. This is, of course, very dangerous because you are now fighting against your competition’s strengths.

We (i.e., Aperio Marketing) just as guilty of of falling into this trap as anyone. We offer email marketing services. Our prices are very competitive, but not as good as Constant Contact, which does a great job of being the low cost provider for email marketing.

Through Constant Contact you can do email newsletters and awareness campaigns at an incredibly low cost. And what’s one of the first conversations we have with new prospective customers? The price. We cannot win that conversation. Despite the fact that email marketing is inexpensive in general, we’re just not the absolute least expensive option.

What should we be doing instead? We need to be better at discussing things we do better than Constant Contact. We need to educate people that email newsletters and awareness campaigns aren’t the sum total of email marketing. Email marketing should also include informative, useful emails, such as appointment reminders, birthday or anniversary messages, or personalized, custom content based on their job title or industry. It should also allow you to track when and what campaigns drove people to sign up for your emails, so you can determine how best to use your resources. And we rarely get to discuss our superior customer service — mostly because we don’t ever bring it up. Instead, we just head in to a discussion on a topic we can’t win: price.

Obviously, we have something to learn from the State Farm campaign. I thought I would share with one of our failings as a company so that, hopefully, you too will be better able to fight the right battles. As promised, here’s the hot dog spot. Enjoy!

“If I couldn’t interrupt you, how would I reach you?”

This is virtually the first line in the new book by Dave Evans, “Social Media Marketing: an Hour a Day.” It’s in the About the Author section, before the table of contents. Most people won’t read this part of the book. But this is a very powerful question, one that every business — small and large — should be asking.

Here’s why: the traditional marketing and advertising system is broken. The traditional system is about buying advertising and interrupting people with your message. This system worked for a time. Yet, with the proliferation of products and media, we are now constantly bombarded with interruptions. Because there are so many messages, these interruptions have become background noise and is fairly easy to ignore. We now have caller-ID, TIVO, satellite radio, do-not-call lists, and more, all which allow us to choose the messages we want to hear.

And this is why social media, networking, and email marketing are so powerful. These media are based on the concept of permission marketing. When done correctly, you will receive permission to send messages to people who are interested in your ideas.

However, just because you get permission doesn’t mean you have a license to send any message. It must be an appropriate message, ideally something that is of value to your audience and to you. The way to achieve this is to be different. Or, as Seth Godin might say, be remarkable.

Here’s an example of what NOT to do: I receive an email newsletter from an independent restaurant near me that’s actually pretty good. I enjoy their food. But their emails are horrific. The content is obviously syndicated — mass-produced for restaurants — and every time I get one of their emails I cringe. It has (bad) jokes and information that I just don’t find interesting at all. And I’m not the only one who thinks this. It’s a running joke among my friends who are also on their list.

While I originally asked to receive their emails — thus giving them permission to market to me — they didn’t follow through with appropriate messaging. This good restaurant has lost me, a good customer. I haven’t gone there in probably two years. Not because of bad food or bad service, but because they abused their privileged to market to me. It’s left a bad taste in my mouth, literally and figuratively.

Here’s an example of what you SHOULD do: identify what makes your organization unique and then ask, “Who cares?” If  it really matters, tell people. Create your identity around it. Start a blog and write about it. Talk about it when you meet people, work it into your elevator pitch, put it on your business cards, and on your web site. If it really matters, people will notice. It will connect your organization with the people who like what makes you different. It will not be an interruption. It will be interesting. People will see it and they will tell others. Soon, you will have an email list full of people, subscribers to your blog, followers on Twitter — all of them eager to hear your message.

The restaurant I mentioned didn’t do this. Despite their good food, they are no longer different. They are just another restaurant. Actually, they are worse, because not that many restaurants know my email address and interrupt me. The owners of the restaurant probably don’t want to put the time into creating unique content or identifying an idea or differentiator that sufficiently answers the “who cares” question. And it shows.