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Window dressing for your blog?

September 30, 2006

Want to add a little window dressing to your blog? Why not add a favicon? A what? Yup, A favicon. Short for "favorite icon" it’s a small icon that appears in the address bar of browsers when they are visiting or have bookmarked your blog. If you’d like to learn more about it, check out typepad’s support page on the topic.

I noticed when using my NetNewsWire (an amazingly easy reader if you don’t already have one) that some people had little icons next to their blog name and others just had more generic google or typepad icons. So I did a little legwork…and stumbled upon a post at Pajama Market. If you don’t know this blog — you’ll want to.

It a favicon necessary? Of course not. But, it’s a little window dressing. And that makes good marketing sense.

Remember, whether we are talking a blog, a deli, a dry cleaner or a tech support services company, you have a lot of competition. Your potential buyers are looking for clues as to how you might be different from the others. They want to have a sense of you. Your window dressings (elements that are more style than substance) can tell them a lot about your organization’s personality.

It’s human nature to seek out people/companies that feel comfortable. Birds of a feather an all. So by giving your potential customers a peek into your attitude, it allows them to make a better choice. It’s the difference in choosing Ben & Jerry’s Chubby Hubby ice cream versus Kemp’s Old Fashioned Maple Nut.

Any time we can help a consumer decide to choose us OR not choose us, we win. We earn customers who are a good fit and avoid those that aren’t. Isn’t that what branding is all about? Helping people know whether or not you’re a good fit?

So what will your favicon say about you or your blog?

As for this blog’s favicon? Considering the name, I opted for this visual. I found lots of stopwatches, but I liked how this one was looking at the watch from a different angle and looking more closely at the watch’s details. That description felt like a good fit for my posts and thoughts. What do you think?

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Want to be the Supreme Bean?

September 27, 2006

A couple posts from the always insightful Phil Gerbyshak and the beautiful and passionate Kammie Kobyleski (sorry Phil, you just don’t quite make it to beautiful!) have me thinking about how critical it is to bring our passion and positive attitude to work every day. How you celebrate doing that says a great deal about your organization’s culture…and your brand.

At McLellan Marketing Group, we embrace our sense of teamwork with a bit of proverbial tongue in cheek. Everyone is assigned a different kind of bean. Because of my habitual kidney stones, yes…you guessed it, I got kidney beans. There are lima, coffee, pinto and a variety of others.

We also printed up index sized cards that say "You’ve been beaned" and have some room to write a note. The premise is simple. When one of your teammates goes out of their way to be helpful or supportive — you bean them. You write a little note, thanking them for what they did and leave the note and one of your beans on their desk.

At the end of every month, we tally the beans. Whoever received the most beans is declared the "Supreme Bean" and heralded by everyone. They also receive a $10 gift card.

Over the years, many of the employees have created quite a collection of beans that they proudly display on their desks in a variety of creative containers.

Easy. Cheap. Fun. And a great way to declare our absolute intent to be passionate about the work we do, our clients and perhaps most of all, each other. Do you suppose when we add a team member and explain the whole bean thing, they get a sense that team focused is one of our core values?

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Don’t let your technology embarrass you!

September 26, 2006

As a blogger on TypePad, I access my account by going to their home page and entering my userID and password. Simple and efficient. The TypePad home page is clean and well organized. It has plenty of links and concise bits of information. All what you would expect from people who use technology to make a living.

Here’s the odd thing. Every time I go to their home page, the exact same quote appears. Now, wouldn’t you think someone as sophisticated as the TypePad folks would use the power of their own technology and have quotes rotate? If that was the case, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed.

Although it isn’t really fair, we consumers tend to notice things that seem deficient or out of place. Don’t let your use of technology suggest that perhaps you haven’t thought it through, or even worse yet, don’t quite have a handle on it.

What does your technology say about you?

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Beware of the duh factor

September 2, 2006

I recently saw an ad with the tagline "the difference is our people!" It doesn’t matter what business it was for because many businesses claim this as their unique point of difference. No offense to all of the businesses that think this is what makes them stand out from their competition — but duh. Everyone claims that they have great peopler, ergo great customer service. And the truth is…most of them do. To break through the marketingplace, we need to be about more than good customer service.

Why? Don’t people want good service. Sure. But they also expect it. It’s a duh. A given. If you don’t provide good customer service, you’re not going to keep their business. Don’t you think most businesses are hustling to serve their customer? That’s not a brand — it is a cost of doing business. An expectation.

Another popular duh is competency. Companies will tout their expertise as though their competitors are completely incompetent. The reality is that’s just not true. To create marketing materials or ads that claim "we’re good at what we do" is a waste of resources. Again, your consumer assumes you’re qualified to do your job. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be even under consideration. Skill-level or competency is a show me message, not a tell me. It’s a little like honesty. If someone has to keep telling you that they’re honest, pretty soon you wonder why they are making such a big deal about it.

So why do companies rely on "duh" level taglines or promises? Because it’s easy. It doesn’t require digging deeper to find out what really does set them apart from their competition. Double-check yourself. Are you taking the easy way out and making a duh promise?

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