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Why is Coke’s message so smart?

Strategically: It reflects everything the Coke brand tries to stand for: friendliness to all, “real thing” authenticity, and a distinctive taste in a world of wannabes.

Tactically: It delivers the message to a captive audience that has a free sample the product right in front of it. The message is completely appropriate and relevant. It’s beautifully written and designed, and as engaging as a napkin can possibly be. The right message, to the right people, at the right time. Perfect.

Three lessons for all marketers

1. Work on your key (strategic) messages.
If you think this message was simple and easy to produce — well, Coke and their marketing partners are so good at messaging that it only seems easy. Can you state your value proposition so easily? Does your company have a consistent voice and personality? These elements are central to your effective messages. Work on them and reinforce them — now, and constantly. A week or two before your trade show, or the day before your press release is due, is way too late.

2. Anytime, anywhere your company or brand interacts with your customers, there’s a profound opportunity.
Never take “small” touchpoints for granted. How easy it would be for Coke just to put a logo on the napkin, with an inane slogan. (I don’t believe “Open Happiness” is inane in any way, shape or form, but feel free to disagree.) This is powerful messaging where you’d least expect it. What are some small touchpoints that you’ve overlooked?

3. It’s harder than it looks to maintain market leadership in a commoditized category.
Coke has a hard job compared smaller brands that talk to more focused segments. Yet Coke still hit home runs. Think about it: Red Bull and Mountain Dew have created their own sub-categories. With much more focused audiences, their job of creating relevant communication is relatively easy. (Red Bull and Mountain Dew are tremendously successful, that’s part of the lesson.) But Coke must connect with 12-year-olds as well as their great grandparents, and they do a great job.

(Coke seems to be moving from “most liked” to “beloved” with their current efforts. Contrast this to the sad state of affairs over at Pepsi — their Super Bowl commercials, in particular). If Coke can rise to this challenge, how about you — whether you’re a market leader, or a challenger?

What do you think?

Do you agree that this example from Coke is a particularly strong bit of marketing? What lessons do you take from it?

Related posts:

1. “The Al Jazeera Revolution”
2. Your marketing message: Does it connect?
3. Really bad branding

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Twitter inspires love and hate

It may be hard to see what value you can get from 140 characters competing in a sea of incomprehensible tweets such as “RT @SuperBlogDude, yo!” and yawners like “I’m at Denny’s.” I was just as skeptical, not that long ago.

If you’re looking for a shortcut to sales, Twitter isn’t it (though there are exceptions). But I now swear by it.

Mirroring my own experience, here’s why you may want to keep your mind open to Twitter.

1. It’s a great platform for customer service. A couple of years ago, I was ambivalent about Twitter. Then I read a case study about a company few people knew about. Zappos, an online shoe seller, had racked up a billion dollars in annual sales. They had created a reputation – among people who buy lots of shoes – for service that surpassed even Nordstrom. Zappos’ main brand-building tool: Twitter. They used Twitter mainly for customer service. It helped them be so responsive and so transparent, they created a business case that will be studied for years.

The Zappos case proves there’s more to Twitter than you can tell from the 140-character entries.

2. It opens up an entire new world of information. I wanted to learn about newer marketing techniques. Twitter was like getting a college degree on an accelerated schedule. It helped me identify experts in the field, follow them, and get quick notification of their newest blog posts. I learned what they are talking about and doing, and where to turn for answers.

On Twitter, you can find fresh, leading-edge information, often from unusual yet authoritative sources.

3. Twitter tears down physical barriers to meeting people. In my old life as an ad agency creative, I met and worked with some impressive individuals. But it took years to build up my Rolodex. (You kids under 30, look that up.) With Twitter, I connected and interacted with leaders in digital/social and social marketing in a matter of weeks.

I now communicate regularly with smart folks on every continent. Ideas know no boundaries. Business opportunities know very few.

4. Meet people locally. An unexpected benefit, to me, is how many people I’ve connected with right here in my own town, Spokane. Pretty valuable to someone who hasn’t lived here all that long.

Combine Twitter with your in-person networking strategy. Locate people locally, engage them, and create strategic relationships.

5. Twitter gently encourages you to take positive business action. I’ve never been the world’s best self-starter, but Twitter has made me better. Twitter forces you to prove your worth. You’ll have to provide good content yourself – or you can organize and curate other people’s content. You learn to focus and strengthen your message, and how to interact effectively.

The fact that people are just one click away from you and your business encourages you to get your business in order. It shows you how you stack up against competition, locally and globally. There’s no hiding behind your Twitter handle.

6. Twitter helps you research almost anything. Twitter’s search function helps you learn about people, products, companies and more.

You don’t even need a Twitter account to us  Twitter Search. It’s a great resource. It’s especially useful for real-time trends and information. Monitor your competition, or your foreign counterparts.

7. Get quick, candid feedback. Be direct and ask your followers about anything. Or target specific users, whether they follow you or not.

I use Twitter to ask questions to people I want to emulate, do business with, who have specific expertise, or those I just plain admire. Amazingly, they usually answer.

8. Establish credibility and expertise. Respond to comments, especially on your specialty topics. Answer questions. Ask great questions in return. Start conversations. Expand your influence.

Twitter is great for conversation. It’s why they call it “social” media. The 140-character limit imposes discipline, and lets you drive traffic to your site.

9. Promote your promotions. You have a white paper, a video, a free software application, a contest, a great blog post, a limited-time low price? Tweet it. Add a Twitter sharing button to your online communications. See them go viral. If you develop the right community, and offer the right value, Twitter can drive traffic to your website or your storefront.

Twitter is a gateway drug to other social media. It’s a good source of traffic to my blog. And with a Twitter “share button” on my blog, the reverse is true as well.

10. Google likes Twitter. I just Googled my name. The third item comes from my Twitter account. And it’s current.

Twitter is a fast way to improve your search engine rank.

11. There’s no right and wrong way to use Twitter. Twitter is new. It’s simple. Once you’re handy with it – in days – you’ll think of ways to use it that are just right for your business. [Edit to add: Actually, there are some wrong ways to use Twitter, as with anything else. There's poor etiquette and obnoxious behavior. But that's another post altogether.]

People do business with people they know, like and trust. Twitter is a tool for letting people know, like and trust you. What you do with it is up to you.

Give twitter a chance to help your business. Even if it’s not your bag, you’ll learn if and where it belongs in your marketing plan.

What are your thoughts, questions, reservations, or personal experiences with Twitter?

Related posts:

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2. Inbound marketing: a primer
3. Where does a small business even start? (part 1)

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I was walking to the LaunchPadINW office yesterday when I stopped to wait for one of downtown Spokane’s interminable red lights.

A 30-ish man walked up beside me with what appeared to be a rental tuxedo in clear suit bag, slung over his shoulder. I said, “I hope it’s going to be a good party.”

He turned to me, completely beaming: “I won a contest! The circus is in town and I got chosen to be the assistant ringmaster! My kids will be in the front row while I’m in the main ring!”  (A few hours later, I drove by the big top. Yep, the circus was in town.)

I won’t soon forget how excited this full-grown man was about going to the circus. Heck, I’m excited for him.

And I won’t forget the brilliance of the El Katif Shrine Circus‘s promotion.

The promotion ties in perfectly with everything we imagine the circus to be. Equal parts wonderment, fantasy and childhood magic. It cost the circus little, other than the expenditure of some imagination and empathy.

Do your company promotions have nearly this much emotional power?

Maybe you’re thinking – “That’s easy for a circus, I have a home heating company. I can’t match that!” Perhaps. But what a lesson:

Put yourself in the shoes of your customers before you even begin to look for that magical connection.

(I don’t know if the circus will be able to get coverage in the press, what an angle it would make, don’t you think? “Ringmaster For A Day – Man’s Children Look On In Amazement!”)

So don’t take the easy way out, and run a typical promotion for your next trade show or event – like giving away an iPad that has nothing to do with your business. Take some inspiration from the man in the main ring, who gets to be the center of his kids’ world in a whole new way. Run a promotion that people will talk about. (Or blog about.)

For your next promotion, how will you capture the essence of your brand, and make some magic for your customers?

Related posts:

1. From Seth Godin: How to tell a great story
2. Your company story: A business lesson from Buzz Lightyear
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Really, I should have been grateful for the free service they provide. For the hundreds of new Twitter folks I’ve connected with, with HootSuite’s help. For the 99.99% of the time that they’re up and running and helping me expand my horizons. (You old-time telecom folks will notice that’s four, not five 9s of reliability.)

And it makes me think: How many free services would I be sunk without? Admittedly, not as many as some folks, but still… here’s a short list.

Yahoo mail
Gmail
Google Alerts
Google Reader
Google Docs
WordPress.com
Dozens of WordPress plugins from generous folks around the world
Free WordPress themes from generous folks around the world
YouTube
Twitter
Facebook
HootSuite
Linkedin
Social Mention (OK, I wouln’t be sunk, exactly)
Klout (OK, it’s actually a curse)
LaunchPadINW
BaseCamp
CyberDuck
Who.Unfollowed.Me
bit.ly
A hundred free resources from HubSpot

* * *

That’s just off the top of my head. Amazing value there, isn’t it?

There are so many great services available at no cost beyond a computer and a connection. We all take them for granted, yet they help us get in business, compete, learn and just have a good time.

Which free services are you grateful for – and why?  And even more important, do we show enough gratitude for the hard work of so many people in the digital community?

No related posts.

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Startup Marketing: Tactical Tips From The Trenches

The link take you to a blog post from Dharmesh Shah, co-founder of HubSpot, the marketing automation software company that coined the term inbound marketing. He knows a few things about startups and success. Here’s how he intros his list of 21 tips:

…I started making a list of all of the things I’d advise a new startup to do to get things kicked off with a limited budget.  As it turns out, there are a lot of tactical steps that individually don’t do much, but in aggregate start laying the foundation for much bigger things…This list is not intended to be a comprehensive “here are all the things you should do”, but more of a “if I were starting a company today, here’s what I would do in the first 10 days…”

Click the link, then come back and tell me what you thought.

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I worked with a great art director way back when. His favorite expression was, “If it were easy, anyone could do it.” It’s unassailable logic, and more true now than ever.

By focusing on the hardest problems, you’ll be forced to innovate. You’ll be able to do things that no one else does, or can do. You won’t be all things to all people – you’ll be the only thing for a lot of people. How much better for your business and your message.

In marketing-speak, that’s called “differentiation.” And “positioning.” It means you’ll have a story no one else can tell. Here are some examples.

Local examples of focus

I visited yesterday with a company that has laser focus on a specific, difficult and dangerous engineering problem. This focus has helped them develop a unique offering. You can see in their eyes how excited they are to come to work each day. No one in the world does precisely what they do, yet there’s a real need for their products and services. They’re backlogged with orders, thanks to their focus.

The Rescue! brand of insect traps focuses on traps that use natural attractants to ensnare insects. None of the other traps on the market catch yellow jackets, wasps and hornets quite as well. I know this first hand. I see the innovative Rescue! products in small hardware stores, big box stores, and everywhere in between. They have no trouble filling their website and other marketing vehicles with heartfelt endorsements from grateful fans. It’s focus.

When my cousin graduated from law school, he wanted to be an entertainment lawyer. He didn’t live in a big city. He met discouragement at every turn. “Join our firm; get your hands on little of everything,” they told him. He didn’t listen.

Today he has a thriving entertainment law firm. He has famous clients. The large firm who once wanted him to work on divorces, personal injury and real estate now want to acquire his practice. Turns out he had the courage to meet an unmet demand when no others would. He focused.

National examples

Chick-fil-A, the fast-serve restaurant chain from Atlanta, is growing by leaps and bounds. They are far more focused on a particular product (chicken sandwiches) and a particular culture (southern and Christian) than any of their larger competitors. While McDonald’s solved the “fast” problem, Chick-fil-A solved a harder one: making fast taste delicious. Their focus has created raving fans. (I’m one, but I don’t sing as well as this guy.)

Geico has focused relentlessly for 16 years. They were a me-too company when they began to focus on the 15 minutes that can save you 15%. Now they’re a top-3 auto insurer. That’s the power of focus.

You probably see many examples of this in your every day life, both from local companies and global brands. Maybe you never thought of it in terms of focus and solving the hardest problem. I hope you will now.

If this post inspires one person to zag while others zig, I will have earned my blogger badge for the day.

What examples of focus inspire you?

(Suggested reading: Marty Neumeier’s classic, Zag. From David Aaker, “Make your competition irrelevant”.)

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Should your taxes protect Sir Martin's empire?

Example: Sir Martin Sorrell helped build a global empire of ad agencies. Now he suggests that governments use your tax money to preserve the outmoded system that made him a billionaire. Holding on to yesterday never works, Sir Martin.

Inbound marketing is based on the self-evident truth that you should make it easy for the right customers to find you, rather than simply searching for the customers amongst the masses. Most people I work with recognize this from their own buying habits. If you agree with the concept, but haven’t turned it into action, is it because change scares you?

Stagnancy should scare you more.

Here are some clues that you need real change, and why embracing inbound marketing may be part of the answer.

1. Business has stagnated – or gotten incrementally worse – for a long time

Is it the economy? Or has the world simply changed? If your prospects always have an objection that you just can’t overcome, maybe you’ve got bigger problem than you thought. You either have the wrong products, the wrong pricing, or the wrong customers.

Inbound marketing doesn’t hold the untenable promise of making you an overnight sensation. It’s designed to build businesses in an orderly, incremental way, by attracting the right customers, rather than large numbers of unqualified prospects. It helps build businesses in the manner of compounded interest rather than winning the lotto.

2. Customers’ complaints are running you ragged

Do customers have unrealistic expectations? Are you making unrealistic claims? Or is it some combination? Chances are, you need to find a value proposition that’s honest and that you can support.

Inbound marketing helps you understand your value proposition because you deal with it every day. Customers will know much more about you –through your vast web presence – before they buy. Through their feedback, you’ll know much more about their needs and expectations. Transparency can be a good thing.

3. Employees are unhappy

Employees are happy when they can make customers happy. If they are systematically unable to do so, maybe it’s because your system no longer works the way it once did.

Inbound marketing, especially with social media, can give your employees a voice. It gives them more visibility and responsibility. Giving your employees a higher profile may be scary, but they will find it rewarding. Good policies and practices can assure quality and develop your employees’ talent.

4. Marketing doesn’t seem to work any more

Are your marketing practices rooted in old assumptions about media and messages? Does it rely on interruption and cleverness, rather than engagement, honesty and value? Does it require huge expenditures that feel like gambles more than investments?

Inbound marketing lets you try a lot of approaches without spending a lot of money. In a world of change, inbound marketing has incredible flexibility built in. Plus – it takes the mystery out of analytics. It’s far easier to see what’s working and what’s not – for you and your customers.

5. Your story isn’t straight

When people ask questions about your business, is it hard to give a concise, compelling answer? Can everyone on your team answer in ways that resonate and don’t conflict?

Inbound marketing centers your company story around your customers and their needs, rather than yourself. It helps your story satisfy like a suspenseful film noir that ties together every loose end. The customer becomes the hero. And that’s far more interesting to someone with money to spend.

* * *

These are just clues that I’ve encountered. Surely I’ve missed a few. What are some that you’ve seen?

Related posts:

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Piggybacking on the Dali Lama didn't work

Sometimes when you’re trying to figure out what to talk about in your marketing communications, the temptation to “borrow interest” from a totally unrelated topic is too hard to pass up.

Maybe because it’s relatively easy to borrow interest from something or someone who is well-known. And relatively hard to perform the real work that’s often required to communicate real value.

But think twice before using someone else’s fame, reputation or notoriety to get attention for yourself. It can backfire.

A couple of examples of poorly borrowed interest

Remember the Groupon commercials from the 2011 Super Bowl? If you do, it’s only because they were in such bad taste. Timothy Hutton making light of Tibet, Liz Hurley making light of the rainforest, and Cuba Gooding Jr. making light of endangered whales. The ads generated so much negative feedback, Groupon removed them from YouTube. It was supposed to be a coming-out party for a new major brand, but the ads must be considered a major fail. (The funny part? Groupon established itself through online/social media. Why did they feel the need to join the old-school, traditional advertising crowd?)

Then there was the recent snafu with Kenneth Cole, tweeting: “Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online.” I wonder: At what point did people who risk their lives against a brutal dictator become an opportunity to sell overpriced footwear?

You can find dozens, if not hundreds of examples of high-profile marketing communications that seek to leverage someone else’s fame, fortune or misfortune to grab some easy publicity. Sometimes it works. Usually it falls flat. Sometimes it’s a disaster.

Why not be authentic?

Borrowed interest is nothing more than bait-and-switch: We pretend to talk about something you’re interested in, then change the subject once we have your attention. How much better to talk about your own goods and services in a real human voice, rather than introducing irrelevant ideas.

The era of social media amplifies phoniness. Customers don’t like phonies. So always ask yourself a question before you publish:

Is this communication an honest reflection of me and my company?

The answer keep you out of hot water, and help you form honest relationships with the people you want to engage.

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1. 5 clues that a business needs to change
2. Don’t make your customers look like twits in the name of “creativity”
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He'd be even more confused today

I lost faith in the ability of traditional advertising to make a dent in most businesses years ago. The tipping point was probably when my boss strong-armed a client into producing a Super Bowl commercial. The client, an old beer brand, would have had better luck investing in the California Lotto. An entire year’s budget was blown in one fell swoop.

Traditional marketing used to work, no doubt. It was a decent enough trade-off at the time: You watch our awkward and often insulting and sometimes misleading messages, and we’ll subsidize your TV, radio and print content. New technologies — the remote control, 500 channel cable, DVDs, DVRs, MP3 players, caller ID, the Internet — all made these interruptions more unwanted, and more avoidable.

For the vast majority of businesses — mine, and probably yours — traditional interruption-based marketing just doesn’t work any more.

At some point, it became far more efficient simply to help the customer find you online, than for you to find the customer, interrupt him and seduce him.

Enter: Inbound marketing

For most companies, the website is a repository of everything your company does and stands for. But that’s not enough to grow your business. How do we turn our websites and our social media into the marketing and sales tools we know they can be? After years of asking, marketers have arrived at some answers. Taken together, these answers form the emerging discipline of inbound marketing.

Inbound marketing encompasses a variety of strategies and techniques that help companies get found online by those who are looking for their products and services. Inbound marketing techniques encourage website visitors to invest time and take specific actions in return for something of value. The inbound marketing mantra: Get found. Convert. Analyze. Here’s a brief overview.

Get found

First, create content. And lots of it: blog posts, product pages, landing pages with offers, videos, photography, webinars, ebooks and white papers. In other words, become a publisher. Don’t worry, you can do it. Just share your knowledge. Making videos and web pages is easy and fun once you get into it. And yes, you can outsource. It generally costs far less than traditional advertising.

Next, optimize your content. Use search engine optimization techniques (SEO) so that Google and other search engines can “recommend” you. Make your content informative and valuable. Use relevant keywords. Get other websites to link to your content. Also, optimize your content for your visitors. Make it easy for them to find what they’re looking for, and make it clear to them what actions they should take.

Then promote your content: Use social media, your email list, AdWords, your email signature, personal appearances – whatever makes sense for your business and your customers.

Convert

Now that you have visitors, convert them into real prospects. Invite them to interact with you. Offer free or low-cost content that has real value – an ebook, a webinar, a sample or an evaluation. You can ask for their email address or more. Maybe they can call a phone number, or join you on Facebook. When they interact with you, they enter your sales funnel — enthusiastically! It’s now up to you to nurture the lead until its ready to become a sale.

Analyze

All this online interaction with your prospects is measurable. You’ll be amazed what you can learn: What content people like. What actions they’ll take. How they’ll react to different versions of the same offer. Which websites referred your visitors. Where visitors are physically located. Learn about your competitors’ web traffic. Learn the relationship between success and dozens of variables, which you can adjust as needed. It’s all in the data.

Sound easy?

It’s not exactly easy. But it’s not rocket science either. Inbound marketing gives you a proven roadmap to success. How well you do will always be somewhat proportional to the time you put into it. You can’t simply turn on a marketing spigot when sales start to dry up. You need to water your inbound garden every day.

Personally, I’m glad it’s not overly easy. The commitment it requires constantly forces you to think about how to better serve your customers. It forces your  commitment to industry expertise, and sharing your knowledge. All of this will make you a better business person. It’s not easy, but that’s why you’ll be successful, while your competitors waste time looking for shortcuts that simply don’t exist.

Are you doing what it takes to attract and convert people who already want the benefits you deliver?

If you want a place to start, go to the Inbound Internet Marketing Blog for some useful information. Or go to Inbound Marketing University for some fantastic free resources. Or just run a search for “inbound marketing.”

What’s holding you back?

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“There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.” - Ken Olsen, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

“The telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.” – Western Union internal memo, 1876

“The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?” – David Sarnoff’s associates, in response to his urgings for investment in radio in the 1920′s

“Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.” - New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard’s revolutionary rocket work, 1921

“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” - Harry M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927

“Everything that can be invented has been invented.” – Charles H. Duell, commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899

“We’ll do social media after we get the ad campaign going.” – Countless folks who don’t get it, still today

Can your small business compete without huge marketing budgets?  With only social media and inbound marketing techniques, and a dedication to your customers’ success? Whatever you do, don’t listen to the naysayers.

* * *

Credit where credit is due: The above quotes come from a wonderful web page at NOVA Online.

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