marketing

You’ve got to multiply

August 22, 2018

The new year is fast approaching and as you start working on your marketing plan for 2019, you’re going to need to multiply. Consider these facts.

• The average US adult now spends over 100 minutes a day watching digital video (eMarketer)
• 26% of US adults listen to at least one podcast a month (statista.com)
• 65% of B-to-B marketers use infographics (Content Marketing Institute)
• 55% of B-to-B marketers use webinars and webcasts (Content Marketing Institute)
• 40% of consumers form an opinion by reading just one to three reviews (BrightLocal)
• 92% of consumers visit a retailers website before making a purchase (Episerver)
• Online adults 18-34 are most likely to follow a brand via social networks (MarketingSherpa)

Today’s consumer isn’t living a mono-channel life. We can’t get locked into one channel and hope that we can actually create an on-going conversation. We have to stay interesting and helpful for a longer period of time because we don’t control the pace or place of the conversation anymore.

We also can’t present our messaging in only one format. We have to stay interesting and multiply if we’re going to survive the long haul of earning and keeping our audience’s attention.

Your prospects can stay in the consideration stage for a day or a decade, and we need to be able to not only wait them out, but we also need to work hard to stay on their radar screen for that entire time. Marketing is becoming an endurance sport, and we have to hang in there long enough to have a shot at winning the new customer.

Life is not linear or logical. If we’re trying to be a part of our audience’s narrative, we need to be where they are, and as you can see by the statistics I’ve given you, they’re all over the place. I’m not suggesting that you need to dominate all of the channels, but you need to carefully consider which mix of them make sense for your product, service or brand.

To know which tactics will serve you best, you need to truly understand the buyer’s journey and where along the way they intersect with different mediums. As you can see from the data I’ve shared, odds are your potential buyers are consuming a little bit of everything, from infographics to webinars to videos. You also need to understand how to multiply – how to present your brand’s products and services in the best light. Does it lend itself to a visual presentation? How critical is data to the buying decision? This is all about knowing your buyers and what you sell and figuring out how to make the most effective connections.

The multi-channel approach will serve your organization well. It allows you to show up in many places, with the same consistent messaging so that those impressions stack upon each other and over time. Remember the know • like • trust continuum we’ve talked about many times. Consistency in messaging moves the prospect along that continuum more quickly.

Multi-channel also means you’re more likely to connect with your potential buyers on the channels where they feel most comfortable. We hear better and understand more deeply in our native language. The same is true about our communication channels. If you connect with a prospect where they spend most of their time, they’re less distracted and more open to hearing what you have to say.

On the flip side, trying to juggle multiple channels is a drain on your resources. So you’re going to want to multiply or choose carefully and judiciously.

Stay tuned because we’re going to explore each of the tactics (video, podcasting, infographics, webinars, webcasts, reviews, websites and social media) and identify how they might fit into your plans for 2019.

 

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Channels to consider for 2019- Video

August 15, 2018

We’ve been talking about some of the channels  – email, reviews, video, etc. – that I think every organization needs to consider as they build out their 2019 marketing plan based on data that suggests they’re too big to ignore.

Back when I started my marketing career 30+ years ago, video was a very different beast than it is today. Back then, when we produced a video for a client, it was an incredibly expensive endeavor and took weeks, if not months, to plan, execute and complete. A $50,000 video shoot was considered low end so unless the client was huge, it was a once every few years sort of luxury.

The other big difference with video back then was distribution. There was no YouTube or Internet to use as a way of getting your video in front of your audience. You had to assemble them at a meeting, trade show or some other event and actually run the video while they were in the room. To even type those words sounds so absurd today.

In contrast, this year the average US adult will spend over 100 minutes a day watching digital video (eMarketer). Video has gone from a “few can afford it” marketing tool to one of the most common and one of the most effective.

Brands are producing videos on the fly and publishing them within an hour (if not faster) of being shot. Tools like Facebook Live are bringing us the ability to publish on the fly, and the biggest shift of all – our consumers’ perceptions of these raw, less produced videos has completely changed. Consumers appreciate the authenticity and real-time aspect of the shoot and show style we’re seeing more of today. They aren’t judging the value of the content based on the production value.

Don’t get me wrong; there is still a place and a need for a well shot and artfully edited/produced video. Everything shouldn’t be a run and gun effort. But there’s plenty of room for both.

Interestingly, even though the production requirements for a successful video have changed dramatically, the best ways to use video are still pretty much the same.

Tell a story: Everyone talks about the importance of being able to tell a story in your marketing. That point of view is nothing new, but it’s as relevant today as it was 50 years ago when Leo Burnett introduced us to the lonely Maytag repairman.

Demonstrate something: There’s no better way to teach than to let the audience see if for themselves. Demo videos make the unbelievable very real and the hard to understand, very tangible.

Testimonial: This can be a blend of telling a story, touching an emotion and even demonstrating something. We all know the power of hearing an endorsement from an actual customer. It’s why ratings and reviews are so coveted today. But actually seeing the person as they tell their story of your brand and how it helped them is so much more compelling than just the written word alone.

Teach: This is an aspect of video that has exploded thanks to YouTube. If you want to know how to do something today – from swapping out a toilet to repairing your car’s engine, odds are you head to YouTube to watch a video or two before you touch a tool.

Touch an emotion: This is a tricky one. It can be the most powerful use of video, but if it feels manipulative or staged, you can lose a lot of credibility. But when done well, whether you make us laugh or make us cry – this is marketing gold.

This is probably a channel you can’t ignore. Don’t let your pre-conceived ideas about budget or timeline get in your way of leveraging this very powerful medium.

 

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Build your email list

August 8, 2018

If you’ve been following along, we’ve been talking about some marketing resolutions to help you get a jumpstart on your 2019 marketing plan – email, reviews, video, etc. Over the next few posts, I’m going to tackle these suggested resolutions one by one and help you map out how you can crush each one in 2019.

In case you missed it, the resolutions were:

• Build your email list
• Work on earning great reviews
• Produce more videos/build a YouTube channel
• Do less but do it better

Today we’re going to tackle building your email list. Having a strong email list is vital for your business. It’s an asset that you own, and you control. Very few platforms convert more consistently and continuously than effective email campaigns.

Email allows you to target sub-sections of your list, be personal in your delivery and really take advantage of the one to one medium. But before you can take full advantage of your email list – you need to have one.

Make your content something they actually look forward to receiving. While that seems obvious, very few organizations deliver on it consistently. Your content can’t be about you, your team, your special sale or some award you’ve just won. It has to contain ideas or resources that they can learn from, use or share.

Offer different types of subscriptions. Create different resources for different audiences. Help them self-select what insights would be most valuable to them and serve it without the content they don’t care about. You might also offer a variety of frequencies. One person may prefer a monthly communication while another would rather get it in bite-sized pieces every week.

Create free tools, resources or guides that you can trade for email addresses. The key to this strategy is that there has to be a lot of meat on the bone. You can’t earn your prospect’s trust if you skimp on this kind of content.

Create links to capture email addresses throughout your website. Don’t just count on your “sign up for our newsletter” button on your home page. Pepper opportunities for people to join your email list on a variety of pages. Serve up different offers based on each page’s subject matter.

Use other platforms to promote your content. Email may be one of the most effective platforms, but that doesn’t mean the other platforms should be ignored. When you’ve gone to the effort of creating something that is really noteworthy – share it out. Create a private Facebook group or Pinterest board to woo prospects to get a little closer. After they see that you’re focused on adding value to their world – invite them to partake in some of your gated content.

Don’t forget offline events and activities. While we live in a digital world, there’s still plenty of analog activity that allows you to connect with people and identify common interests and needs. As you work your way through networking events, trade shows, conferences and all the other places you bump into people you can help – make those connections. After you nurture those relationships, extend the invitation to join your list so they can get even more of your goodness.

Focus on the two parallel goals in terms of your list. Grow it in quantity and also grow it in terms of engagement. You want people to reply, share, and come to rely on your regular communications. Calendar your communications, so you stay consistent and invest the right amount of time and resources, so you are always serving up something worth getting excited about, from your audience’s perspective.

That’s step one to a very successful 2019.

Next, we’ll tackle the second resolution – getting reviews from your raving fans so you can attract more raving fans!

 

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Marketing Resolutions

August 1, 2018

If you’re like most people, you set some New Year’s resolutions back in January. I have no doubt that by now you’ve stopped smoking, swearing, overeating or showing up late to pick up your daughter at daycare.

Since you’ve mastered all of your personal resolutions, what about your professional ones? Maybe you’ve made some headway or even mastered a few of them by now but my guess is that most of them have gone by the wayside in the day to day chaos of marketing.  It’s never too early to start thinking about next year and as such, I’d like to spend the next couple of weeks getting a jumpstart on brainstorming what your resolutions for 2019 might be, by suggesting a handful for you to consider.

Build your email list: Most of us check our email before our feet touch the floor in the morning. Email is such an integral part of our life that we take it for granted. But your email list is one of the most valuable marketing assets you have. People are willing to give you their email because they believe you’ll send them content they find valuable. Do that on a consistent basis and you’ll earn their trust and eventually, some of them will invite you to earn their business.

In 2019 you need a game plan for securing more email addresses and delivering a higher level of content to that list on a regular basis. There are lots of ways you can get someone to happily give you their email address. Think bigger than the “sign up for our newsletter” box.

Work on earning great reviews: When you go to Amazon or Yelp or even when you search for a specific type of business – you notice the ratings and reviews, don’t you? It’s difficult to ignore them and it’s equally difficult not to be swayed by them. Reviews are playing a much bigger role in influencing the search engines as well as potential buyers’.

2019 should be the year that you actively solicit reviews from the customers who love you. Don’t leave it to chance. Create simple ways for them to tell the world that you’re a five-star business.

Produce more videos and build a YouTube channel for your organization: Videos are such a wonderful storytelling tool and you can’t ignore that in 2019. Whether you are teaching your prospects something, trying to influence them or entertain them – it’s hard to beat the multimedia appeal of video. Don’t be afraid to explore behind the scenes content and true brand journalism as you concept your next video series.

2019 is the year to get over your discomfort of the camera. Remember, you don’t have to be in front of the camera to create compelling video. There are many cost-effective ways to produce compelling videos that connect with your audience and give them a real sense of what your company is all about.

Do less but do it better: There are too just too many options out there. Snapchat, Facebook ads, billboards, referral programs, newsletters, print ads, etc. And that just scratches the surface. Even if you have the marketing budget of Coke, you can’t do it all. So rather than trying to dabble in everything, resolve to winnow down your marketing tactics so you can go a mile deep, rather than an inch deep and a mile wide.

Make 2019 the year that you actually eliminate some marketing tactics. Identify the ones that deliver the best ROI and do them more often and better. Explore ideas on how to expand the value you deliver through the tactics you decide to keep and work on elevating your game, rather than expanding your efforts.

Pick one or two of these and weave them into your marketing plan for the upcoming year. Leverage these trends and best practices as you map our your marketing strategy for the coming year. Do that and you’ll crush your 2019 sales and profit goals.

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Could marketing be a revenue source?

July 11, 2018

Previously, I told you about the book, Killing Marketing, by Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose. Their premise is that marketing has evolved to the stage where it needs to be completely re-invented, and we need to think of our organization’s marketing departments as media companies, that is to say, as a revenue source.

On the surface, it sounds like quite the stretch.

The book quotes Peter Drucker who said: “the purpose of marketing is to create and keep a customer.” In this case, the authors are emphasizing the word create. They believe that marketing has moved from just persuading someone who is already interested in buying what you sell to literally creating the audience in the first place, via your own generated media.

This is where the book risks losing readers. If you run an architectural firm or serve your clients by moving their goods across the country in your truck, the idea of launching a magazine or creating a YouTube show probably holds very little appeal. But when you start considering the broadest definition of media, it gets a little more interesting and might be better aligned with what you are already doing.

The big shift in thinking here is that rather than marketing to sell a product, you market to create an audience. Once you understand that audience and earn their trust, you can monetize that relationship by knowing exactly what they need/want, offering it to them and build revenue in the process.

Instead of saying, “I want to talk about stuff we sell, and hopefully that will catch the attention of people who might want to buy our stuff” you could say, “I will talk about the topics and issues that matter to the people who typically buy our stuff. After we’ve earned their trust and continued attention, it will be easier to sell our stuff to them.”

The truth is – we’ve all been consumers of this sort of strategy. Walt Disney launched his empire by creating cartoons and movies. He then moved into TV. From there, he started creating products and experiences to serve the audience he created.

It would be easy to dismiss this idea as being reasonable for consumer-focused companies but not for the business-to-business model. But it actually works even better for the B2B organization because your audience is naturally more defined and niched.

By now you’re probably wondering what kind of media are we talking about? Here’s a partial list.

• A content-rich website that provides information and opinion pieces
• A forum or message board/group chat engages your core audience
• A weekly podcast or YouTube video
• Monthly educational webinars
• Regional events to create networking and learning opportunities
• A national event with speakers and CEU courses
• Research (you can sell the report/results) that informs your business decisions and offers insight to your audience

That list is daunting, isn’t it? It looks expensive from both a money and time resources perspective. How does that become a revenue stream rather than an ever-growing drain on your company’s budget?

• Sell sponsorships and advertising spots on many of the items above
• Charge a fee for the events and courses you offer
• Create premium content that you put behind a payment firewall
• Sell subscriptions for access to ongoing research or other media
• Build/rent out your mailing list to other companies who are interested in the same audience

I’m barely scratching the surface of what’s possible. I don’t believe this is an all or nothing strategy. Every business could bake some of this thinking into their marketing, or should we say revenue plan. It’s an interesting premise and just imagine what you could do if your marketing was self-funding!

 

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Is marketing dead?

July 3, 2018

 

I just finished a fascinating book, Killing Marketing: How Innovative Businesses are Turning Marketing Cost into Profit, by Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose. Joe and Robert are the creators of the mega-conference Content Marketing World, and Joe has written other books like Content Inc, Epic Content Marketing, and Managing Content Marketing.

Catching a theme?

The core message of their book is acknowledging that the marketing world, as we have known it since the dawn of the big three (print, radio, and TV), is our past and that marketing doesn’t have to be just a cost center anymore. When done well – brands can actually create a profit center from their marketing efforts. Instead of your marketing requiring additional financial resources – what if it generated new dollars? We’ve all heard the idea that brands should become media companies. You may not want to take your company quite that far. But wouldn’t you like to make money with your marketing efforts?

Let’s take a step back before we look at the future. Traditional marketing has been primarily advertising – the renting of space on someone else’s channel to earn attention, brand awareness and alter the consumer’s behavior. Even PR falls under that description. Instead of buying an ad, the brand or their agency would pitch their story to the editorial side of the advertising channels. Their goal was to have a story written about them or their offerings that would create the same results as paid advertising would have generated.

Along came the Internet and suddenly consumers found their voice. Until that shift, they’d been our silent audience. But as it became easier to share opinions on message boards, forums, social media channels, websites and review outlets, they got louder and louder.

Initially, as a defensive mechanism, brands began using the Internet too – creating content to fight for search engine position and to balance the consumers’ voice. But the brands discovered what probably seems to you as a very simple marketing truth – that when the brands provided valuable content and helpful information, the consumers would create a connection and magnify the brand’s reach by sharing the content and inviting others in.

On a mega-level, this is what Johnson & Johnson has done with BabyCenter.com. What started as a simple extension of their core website, it now reaches more than 45 million parents a month across the globe and offers their content in nine different languages. Eight of every ten U.S. mothers use BabyCenter.com.

Odds are your goals aren’t quite so lofty. Which is awesome because that means you can replicate your version of the results faster and with a smaller level of investment. The Internet and digital content have leveled the playing field. It’s why small brands like BigPoppaSmokers.com have crushed their competition, stolen the market share of much bigger companies and have created a brand that garners incredible amplification of their value from the consumers who love them.

The book isn’t suggesting that you abandon your core business model and become an organization that generates revenue the way a traditional media company does. Nor is it suggesting that you should abandon your paid and earned media efforts. For most organizations, there will always be a benefit to those channels.

But what the authors are suggesting is that businesses today also need a profit-generating, owned media strategy that will give you an unfair competitive advantage.

Next week, we’ll explore some of the suggestions the book offers that seem reasonable for small to mid-sized organizations to experiment with as they build out a marketing strategy and budget. Based on the book, you just may want to shift some of your dollars to some new avenues.

 

 

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Marketing automation doesn’t mean autopilot

June 27, 2018

Marketing automation is nothing new, but it is enjoying a renewed focus in conversations about how to stay connected to your prospects and customers. As brands get better about creating content and understanding that our potential customers watch and interact with us for a long time before they’re ready to buy – we have to be prepared to stay in touch in a meaningful, useful way for a lot longer than just the active sales cycle.

Just to make sure we’re all talking apples to apples — marketing automation is the tactic of using software to automate repetitive marketing actions like emails, enewsletters, responses to web inquiries, social media, and other website-driven actions.

We’re all the recipient of marketing automation every day. When we download a checklist off of someone’s website and over time, we start receiving emails related to that topic – that’s marketing automation. When we take a quiz and then are directed to a landing page where we can learn more about our results/possible solutions – that’s marketing automation. When we get a shipping update email in real time – that’s marketing automation. When we sign up for an email-based course, you guessed it. That’s marketing automation.

If you’re a B2B company, don’t think this is only a consumer-facing tool. In fact, it’s the B2B marketers that are really leveraging all of the nuances of this tool.

As you’ve heard me preach many times before – it’s about having the right strategy. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that once you pick the right tool, you’re all set.

Marketing automation is most often used as a lead generation tactic, and it’s a very good one. But it can also serve your current customers from a customer service point of view. Your clients often feel silence after the sale. You chased and wooed them before they bought but after the transaction, they sometimes get less attention. Marketing automation is a way to make sure that never happens.

A sizable part of the marketing process can be automated. Yet many companies and marketers tend to focus on specific tools or features they’re missing rather than on how their marketing automation platforms fit within their marketing strategies.

Today, only 10% of marketers are confident in their ability to execute comprehensive marketing automation programs as part of a larger marketing strategy, according to a recent a Forrester study. That’s not because they picked the wrong software; it’s because of the strategy. A sound marketing strategy should be anchored by clear goals. Those could include thought leadership, lead generation, gaining website traffic or something else. Without establishing these goals, you won’t be able to get anywhere — even with the best marketing automation software.

Remember that marketing automation isn’t a tactic in and of itself. It’s a mechanism to help you amplify the effectiveness of your marketing tactics, and you should be clear about what those tactics are. Are you going to be sending out newsletters or an email nurture campaign, or are you going to focus on collecting inbound leads by providing access to gated content? Be clear from the beginning, because all of your subsequent decisions will be based on maximizing these tactics.

Once you sort out all of that, you’re finally ready to find the right tool. But don’t even start looking until you’ve thought through how you want to use it.

If you implement marketing automation correctly, you can expect to see positive results relatively quickly. Don’t rush into it, though, especially if you don’t have any previous marketing automation experience. Take the time to build a sound strategy, and then invest the time and resources to really learn the platform you invest in. The results will follow if you stick with it.

 

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How engaged are you in digital?

June 20, 2018

It’s hard to imagine there is an active business today that doesn’t have some level of digital connection and engagement. But the truth is that how business leaders define engagement and the level in which they invest (time, money, staff, etc.) in that engagement is an incredibly wide range.

Deloitte released a study for Connected Small Business US, which was commissioned by Google to explore the levels of digital engagement among small businesses (250 or fewer employees) and the impact of each level.

The study determined that there were general levels:

• Basic (no website/no social media presence)
• Intermediate (simple website/basic digital marketing)
• High (advanced, mobile-ready website/multiple social channels)
• Advanced (use of data analytics/mobile apps)

As the researchers reviewed the activity level and the outcomes that aligned with each of the four levels of engagement, they came to some very interesting conclusions.

Digital engagement increases revenue. Seventy-seven percent of businesses in the advanced category reported expecting revenue growth over the next year—almost double the percentage of businesses in the most basic engagement level. The reason the advanced level businesses were confident in the potential of growth is because forty-five percent of them had already experienced revenue growth over the past year, compared to only twelve percent of businesses identified as having a basic digital engagement. Thirty-two percent of the organizations in the high category reported revenue growth.

Digital engagement increases employment needs. When a business experiences increased revenue, it only makes sense that they’d need a larger workforce. So no surprise, the category of companies that reported larger percentages of revenue growth (high and advanced) also reported an increase in employment growth. The research also pointed out that people employed by a digitally savvy company “tend to be relatively more productive, with the average revenue per employee at digitally advanced businesses being two times as high as small businesses with a basic level of engagement.”

Digital engagement creates new products and services. Over the past twelve months, businesses at the basic level had less than a ten percent chance of introducing a new product or service. On the flip side, almost seventy percent of the most digitally advanced companies reported did. New channels mean new opportunities, and if you’re not there, you can’t take advantage of them.

So what does this mean for your business? It means that maintaining just the “table stakes” level of digital engagement is costing you opportunity, market share, and money. If you are at that level, which was defined as just having a simple website and not really using effective email marketing, social media or exploring the data that these tools can give you, you need to recognize the consequences. This should not come as a surprise to you but perhaps the outcomes that this study points to can serve as the wake-up call to drive you to explore how your business can step further into the digital realm.

This study emphasizes what common sense has told us for some time. The way we do business has changed. The expectations that the marketplace has for us have changed. We may be the only element that hasn’t yet changed.

For every business, whether you only serve a local audience or an international customer base, embracing digital strategies is a business must. Tools like marketing automation, social media, mobile readiness, and letting the data help you determine what your prospects are interested in and what you can offer to encourage trial and conversion is more business survival than anything else. Today, as the research clearly demonstrates, businesses that ignore that truth are simply behind in revenue, growth, and innovation. But pretty soon, without making some changes, they may just not exist anymore.

 

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Where do AI and marketing collide?

June 13, 2018

AI or artificial intelligence is, at its simplest definition, when a computer is capable of mimicking human intelligence and making decisions/taking action based on that intelligence.

We’ve been slowly evolving to AI being pretty commonplace for years. I’m not talking robot uprising. I’m really talking about tools that help us analyze data and choices to predict best outcomes. Odds are, you are taking advantage of AI today and just didn’t label it as such. The iPhone’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa are simple examples of AI. Both use machine learning technology to get smarter based on our choices and actions so they can serve our needs better with each interaction.

There’s no doubt, given all of the consumer data we have at our disposal today, that AI and marketing will merge in some pretty interesting ways. Granted, we’re talking infancy stages, but the truth is you are probably using it today without recognizing it.

Here’s a quick look at some of the elements of our work where AI is already present and will have an even bigger influence down the road.

Digital media: Given the almost infinite number of advertising options and the advent of programmatic media buying it’s easy to see how computer calculations and propensity modeling would save us time, remove the human bias and deliver projected outcomes. Results can be tracked, modeled, modified and improved upon in nanoseconds, as opposed to how long it would take us to do it manually.

Retargeting and ad targeting are two areas where AI is already playing a pivotal role and is getting better every day.

Content: As a writer, I will admit that I bristle at this idea. How can a computer possibly write as well as a human being? In many cases (at least for now) it can’t. A computer can’t generate copy that connects the emotional dots, but it can generate a report or content around factual dots. Check out Wordsmith.com and watch how they can take information like an earnings report or sporting outcomes and create very human-like copy.

There’s also the area of content creation. Can a computer watch what people view and buy and then use data to know what that consumer should be shown next? Amazon, Netflix, and Pandora are already showing us how effective this is. Why wouldn’t you want the same AI to be working on your website or other digital assets?

Who is your next buyer? This is a fascinating and sophisticated aspect of AI and marketing that many organizations have yet to explore. By using propensity modeling, predictive analysis can give you insight into who is ready to move from consideration to purchase and which of your existing customers is most likely to buy. It will also give you an idea of what kinds of offers (products, discounts, etc.) are most likely going to trigger that purchase decision.

From there, it’s an easy jump to dynamic pricing. AI would help you determine who needs a discounted price to convert and who is ready to buy without you having to give up part of your margin.

Earlier in the sales cycle, AI can help with lead scoring. The idea that a computer can sort through our prospect list and tell us where to concentrate our efforts is very appealing.

There are many industries and professions who are probably right to be a little nervous about AI. But for us marketers – AI is poised to be a huge advantage in how we work. It has the capability to help us measure and deliver ROI in a very efficient way, which allows us to spend even more time on the creativity and innovation sides of our business. Because in those spaces, we are irreplaceable.

 

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Tread carefully on tragedy

May 30, 2018

When our country endures a tragedy like the Parkland shooting or a natural disaster like the volcanic eruptions in Hawaii, we get completely wrapped up in the stories, the people, and the emotions. We want to show our concern, to connect with each other to mourn together and, of course, we want to do something to support the victims.

Immediately after the Parkland shooting a few months ago, we saw people changing their social media profile pictures, expressing their support and starting fundraising campaigns. Because of the nature of the tragedy we also saw a flurry of conversation about gun control, mental health and other social issues that played a role in the shooting.

As a country, we were horrified, afraid, angry, sad and struggling with our feelings of helplessness. We expressed all of those reactions for many days following the shooting.

My guess is that if your social media channels are like mine, some people expressed themselves more eloquently than others. And some, it seemed, just talked to talk, as if they didn’t want to be left out.

But the people who really touched my heart and inspired me were the ones who didn’t say very much but they did something. They donated blood or shared a link to a site collecting donations. They found a way to help and quietly did so.

Brands can probably take a lesson from that observation. After all, organizations hurt and feel compassion in the same way we do. They want to express their support as well. After all, they’re just big groups of people.

Much like our friends and family – some companies express their support better than others. There’s a thin line between solidarity and trying to capitalize on a tragedy to position your brand/organization in a good light.

Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s very bad form for any organization to use a crisis or tragedy as a marketing tactic. But you sure don’t want your well-intentioned gesture or words to be labeled as self-serving or an attempt to capitalize on a tragedy.

If your company wants to conduct itself in a way that’s above reproach, follow these guidelines.

Say very little, do something meaningful: JetBlue offered free flights to/from Parkland, FL for the families of the victims while Delta Airlines offered free flights to the Washington, D.C. march that many victims and their families attended. Local restaurants donated food feeding the family and friends of the victims and the injured at hospitals, churches and at their homes. Organizations like Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Macy’s, AutoNation and Cigna all donated hundreds of thousands of dollars without any fanfare.

Mourn together: Nickelodeon and MTV – the networks of legions of children and teenagers – went off the air for 17 minutes to honor those killed in the Parkland shooting.

Show your support: Many companies and entities lowered their flags to half-staff and donned ribbons in the colors of Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School – maroon and white.

Help others offer a helping hand: Professionals United for Parkland – an all-volunteer group of more than 250 licensed mental health workers provided free counseling via their referral hotline 24/7 for as long as necessary to anyone in South Florida affected by the shooting.

These companies all showed their compassion and humanity. It’s worth noting that none of their gestures required a lot of talk. In times of tragedy and when people are hurting, actions definitely speak louder than words.

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