Trends Archives - Page 18 of 19 - McLellan Marketing Group

Our glass was WAY past full this morning!

November 10, 2006

Did you feel it? About 8:30 central time (US)? A slight rumble underfoot? An eerie aura or sense that it was no ordinary day?

Me too. Because here in Des Moines, IA (the blogging capital of the world) we had a gathering. And a guest.

Starbucker of Ramblings From a Glass Half Full was in KC for business and decided he had to come up and see what the blogging mecca of Des Moines was all about. As you can see, he had dinner with Tim Johnson of Carpe Factum last night and then got some good rest so he was ready for “DSM Goes a Blogging” (no, not clogging Tom VW) this morning.

What ensued was quite a bit of raucous laughter at Panera, as we online friends put faces and voices to the thoughts and ideas we’ve been sharing together for months. It was tough, after more than 90 minutes, to drag myself away and actually get to the day job. But I have no doubt we’ll get together again.

Here’s a snapshot of the motley crew. In order, from left to right (or as I like to think of it…most handsome to….)

Me
Sandy Renshaw of Purple Wren
Tom Vander Well of QAQNA
Tim Johnson of Carpe Factum
Mike Sansone of Converstations
Starbucker the guest of honor (gotta love a guy who only uses one name!) of Glass Half Full
Mike Wagner of Own Your Brand

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Is wacky marketing a good idea?

November 7, 2006

Now there’s a loaded question, eh?

The answer, of course, is…maybe. Maybe not. How’s that for decisive marketing counsel? Wacky for wacky’s sake is fun but its for you, not for your customer. Wacky for the right reasons, in the right place…for the right business? Now that’s worth looking at, from your customer’s POV.

It all wraps around the bigger issue of branding. Does your brand fit with wacky? If so, you can probably come up with an attention-getting marketing tactic that celebrates something unique about your brand. But if you’re a law firm, it probably doesn’t make much sense.

An article in an old Entrepreneur Magazine caught my eye. The author lists 10 "crazy marketing stunts." Frankly, I think most of them are bad ideas. Which doesn’t make the concept a bad one — but it does point out that being silly for silly’s sake also speaks volumes about your brand. So be wacky mindfully.

The Travelocity Gnome…great idea. It fits their brand. The lizard with the accent and the funny commercials — Geico has done a great job of making themselves different from all the other insurance guys — much like their AFLAC competitors have done with the duck.

So don’t discount wacky. But do it for the right reason. Because it fits your brand.

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Ease into the week — personal brand license plate?

November 5, 2006

I don’t know about you but Sunday nights are time for me to catch up. On my reading, on my work, on my relationships — all with an eye on Monday morning and knowing that the 180 mph pace is about to resume.

Sundays also seem to be my day for deep thoughts. I thought it might be fun to ease into the week together with a question that is sort of about branding and marketing but also has a personal element to it as well. A chance to get to know each other AND talk shop. Perfect for a Sunday night.

At MMG, we’re all about branding. We preach it, believe in it and celebrate it for our clients. But, there’s a whole movement surrounding personal branding too.

As I walked by my SUV tonight, my license plate caught my eye. I’ve had the same plate for about 9 or 10 years now and it never fails to strike up a conversation. But, in a lot of ways, it is the core of my personal brand. I thought I’d share it with you and ask you this question:

If you could brand yourself with a license plate (let’s say a max of 8 letters) what word or combination of letters would you choose to tell the world what you are all about?

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Mobilize!

October 30, 2006

Do you still think of your cellular phone as a way to call home to see if you need to pick up milk? Probably not. It’s a way to keep track of phone numbers, your calendar and surf the web, right?

Partially.

It is also one of the latest marketing mediums to surface. Text message marketing is just the beginning. Want to be reminded of your favorite show’s start time? Odds are, if you go to the show’s official website, you can make that happen.

Want to know when you favorite bar has live music? Yup, that’s available too.

Right now the technology has largely been adopted by consumer products — beer and soft drink companies, couponable transactions, destinations. But, can the B to B applications be far behind?

Lenveno, a computer company that acquired IBM’s personal computing division last year is saying no. This summer they ran a mobile promotion aimed at small business decision makers. Their goal, to build awareness for the ThinkPad PC brand.

The campaign achieved a 188% increase in aided brand awareness and 156% in product recall.

Impressive, eh? And we’re just beginning to see this tactic. Want to read more about it? Check out what they have to say over at the spillover effect.

Ask yourself this — if your current customers gave you their cell phone number — how could you add value, increase loyalty and create incremental sales?

Interesting question.

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How do your customers shop?

October 26, 2006

Here’s one thing I know for sure about your consumers. They are either men or women. (Or kids who will soon evolve into one or the other.) Especially in a retail setting, they behave like completely different animals.

Paco Underhill, founder of Envirosell, a market research company dedicated to examining consumer shopping behavior wrote a fascinating book, Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping. In the book, Underhill explores the shopping beasts by gender.

Here are a few observations Underhill made about male shoppers:

~ Men equally rarely ask for the department they want in a store. They’d rather wander around lost and leave if they can’t find it.

~ If a man tries something on, he’ll buy it 65% of the time.

~ Only 25% of men will grocery shop with a list, as opposed to 70% of women.

If men shop this way – what clues does this give you for dealing with men in your environment?

How about the ladies, you ask? Well…

~ If a woman tries something on, she’ll buy it 25% of the time. (Remember, men were at 65%)

~ At the supermarket, over 90% of women brought a shopping list.

~ Women particularly hate being jostled from behind and may leave a store without buying if aisles are too narrow.

Wondering what others are saying about it? Secrets of the Male Shopper is a long but very interesting read about the state of the male shopper. Check it out. Smart thinking made even more notable because the author is an 18 year old student.

So, are your shopping habits typical of your gender? How can you use these insights as you think about your customers?

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Hey politicians….we are not listening!

October 14, 2006

Ah, fall. The crackle of the fallen leaves, the sounds of football fans cheering in the stadium, the crisp air and the unmistakable squawking of politicians trying to get elected.

Blech.

Here in Iowa, we are in the middle of a heated political battle for Governor. In one corner, we have Jim Nussle. His website tells us how horrific his opponent is and we can see him shown with the Iowa Pork Queen. (Could we not all do 20 minutes on that alone?) In the other corner, we have Chet Culver. Chet’s site and ads tell us of the evil that is Jim Nussle.

Enough already!

Imagine for a minute that every Pepsi ad simply told you how awful Coke was, and visa versa. How stupid can politicians be? And a better question, how stupid are we for allowing it?

Marketing 101 — define yourself. Tell your audience why they need/want you. Demonstrate how you are going to add value. Earn the audience’s trust. Be credible, consistent and authentic.

Have you seen one political candidate this election season that has understood or embraced the principles of Marketing 101? I sure haven’t. And you want to know the saddest part of it all. I’m not sure, if there was a candidate ethical and brave enough to do it — that he/she’d get elected.

Over at the Brilliant at Breakfast blog, the point is well made. We say we hate this sort of election antics and yet, we keep responding.

We’ve all seen horrible ads that seem to keep running over and over for products or services that appear to be less than desireable. Why do they keep running? Because they are working and someone is making a lot of money. I guess the politicians aren’t such dumb marketers after all. How sad for us all.

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Who are you calling cheap?

October 12, 2006

At McLellan Marketing Group, we talk to clients a lot about their pricing strategies. At first, they don’t see it as a marketing issue. "It’s an operations issue," they tell us. Cost of goods, profit margin and voila — there’s your price. Right?

Hardly.

How you are priced, both in terms of where your prices fall in the marketplace and also the structure of your pricing, tells your potential customers a great deal about you. Seth Godin, in a recent post, suggests that you can be cheap or you can be better.

While I don’t disagree with Seth, I don’t completely agree with him either. His logic is simple. If you are of a better quality, you can be more expensive. If you stink or are mediocre, you need to be cheap. That feels like a sucker’s choice to me. While what he suggests is true, it is not the only truth. Frankly, I think you can be of marginal quality and position yourself to be expensive. If you’re cool enough, you’ll be able to command a high price tag. And visa versa. You can be great and still decide to be cheap.

My point is not to tell you what your price point should be. My point is to tell you that you should purposefully decide, from a brand perspective, what your price stragies should be. Do you have a pricing strategy? Can you articulate it?

Let’s talk about pricing structure in the next post, eh?

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Better to not do it at all

October 8, 2006

Consistency.

It is one of the cornerstones to a good marketing and branding foundation. Ann Michael at Manage to Change has a fantastic post on this topic. Her point (and warning) is such an excellent one. If you aren’t going to deliver on it consistently — don’t start. It’s, as my daughter used to say, mean teasing.

Ann’s focus is on your customers and she’s right on the money. But it holds just as true for employees. How you treat your team speaks volumes to your customers, vendors and potential employees. Don’t think its not being watched and judged. So again — don’t do what you aren’t willing to keep doing.

At my agency, McLellan Marketing Group, I have always worked with the notion that I want to ruin my employees so they can’t possibly imagine working any place else. I hire remarkably smart, creative people. So I know my competitors are always looking to steal them. I want to create a work environment that demonstrates I’m as committed to them as I need them to be to our clients. Here are some of the things we do to keep everyone motivated and happy.

~ Weekly concierge service from our good friends at Legs on Lease (someone to run their errands)
~ Professional masseuse doing chair massages
~ We close the office at noon on Fridays
~ An annual education allowance
~ Free soda (when you have to be creative on demand…caffeine is important!)
~ We just took a 3 day trip to Mpls as a team and people could bring spouses etc.

We take the same "let’s spoil them to death" attitude with our clients. Come to a meeting at our place — you’ll get freshly baked cookies. Every time. Is that a reason for them to choose us? Of course not. But do you think they notice if they can’t smell the cookies when they come in? You bet they do.

How can you spoil your employees and clients? What’s something that is uniquely branded you but also, to Ann’s point, something you are going to commit to doing for the long haul?

To stand out in the crowded marketplace you need to do both. Be audaciously true to your brand AND be consistent. So what could you do?

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Who is your posse?

October 5, 2006

Like many of you, I own my own business. I have employees, clients, vendors, peers. Love them all. But there are times when I still feel a bit like the lighthouse operator — out there all alone, trying to shine my light in the right places.

That’s why I have a posse. They keep my passion at full tilt, they keep me sane, they offer me comfort, support or a kick in the pants — depending on what I need. Each owns a marketing agency like I do…so they know the road I travel. Each is brilliant and each one has helped me build and grow my business.

Twice a year, we physically gather (the picture is us in Jackson Hole, WY a couple weeks ago) to spend two days sharing best practices, learning and laughing together. In between our gatherings, we connect through a list serv, the phone and shared projects. We’ve been together for 6+ years now. They’re not just my business advisors and sounding board — they’re my friends. They all own marketing agencies throughout the country. You’ll find them in San Diego (Market Design Group), San Francisco (Gumas Advertising), Denver (AOR), Philly (Altus and 2010 Design), New Hampshire (Bedford Granite) and Washington DC (Fixation). And of course, there’s us in Des Moines, IA. If you need an agency in one of these geographical areas, you will find none better.

But here’s my real point. I’ve got mine, do you?

Who do you surround yourself with? Who pushes you to be better? Who can you share everything (including financials) with and know you’re safe?

If you don’t have a posse, you need to find one. If you want to create one from scratch, I highly recommend the book Meet & Grow Rich by Joe Vitale and Bill Hibbler. It’s about creating what they call MasterMind groups. Posse…MasterMind. Potato…Potato. I don’t care what you call it. I just care that you think about getting one.

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Blogtipping. Friend or foe?

October 2, 2006

I fully admit I am still a neophyte in the blogosphere. I aspire to be a seasoned vet and no doubt will get there one day. But I’m still learning.

I spotted an interesting trend over the past few days that has been given the moniker of blogtipping. The premise is a simple one. On the first of every month, bloggers introduce their community to 2-3 new blogs. With each introduction is a shout out for a few things that make the blog good and the author then offers one tip on how the blog could be even better.

Easton Ellsworth gets the nod for starting this new custom. Ann Michael, Mike Sansone, Phil Gerbyshak and Liz Strauss took blogtipping to a hilarious turn by creating a 4-part ode to the notion. Cute…you bet. But does it make marketing sense?

Traditional views in marketing is that the world is a competitive place. Does it make sense to tell your “customers” about something they might like better than what you have to sell? Shouldn’t you do everything in your power to keep them enamored with you and their eyes off any potential competitor?

Nope. Have you ever tried to hold a puppy who didn’t want to be held? They squirm, wiggle and whimper until you let go. Customers are the same way. No one wants to feel bound against their will. You will earn their loyalty and respect (and repeat business) by demonstrating that you know them well enough to point them in the direction of other products, services and in this case, blogs that they will benefit from discovering.

The benefits to you? Clients love referrals. If you introduce them to something/one they love, they’ll love you even more! The other benefit? If you scratch my back, I might scratch yours. It’s human nature to learn more about someone who makes a referral to you. If you’re a good fit for their audience, those you have tipped will probably return the favor.

Is there a downside? I don’t think so. I highly doubt that anyone unsubscribes from a blog which has successfully blogtipped them to another great blog. After all, you’ve just demonstrated that you know your customer well enough to know what else they’ll enjoy.

So blogtipping is a great marketing strategy! And I will be joining the fray of tippers come November 1st! Hats off to Easton and everyone else who embraces the blogosphere by recognizing that believing in abundance is a much smarter strategy than clinging to the poor puppies!

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