Inside Marketing

Providers vs. Partners

This is part of my continuing rant about the term "Marketing Service Providers."  I'm actually ranting about the term "provider" including it's use in "Print Service Provider."  Really, we think anyone gives us more credibility for being a PSP versus a Printer?  If you ask any of your traditional customers what they consider you, I'd bet dollars to donuts it's not a PSP.

OK, so you're ready to stop being a printer, what do you become?  Please reconsider the MSP moniker. First, if you are going to use it, perhaps evolve to a "Media" service provider. There are a few printers who have successfully rebranded themselves as a Media Service Company.  Notice, they don't use the  word "Provider." I believe the word "provider" clearly puts you in a supplier box as far as a customer is concerned. I'll argue what a customer really wants is an expert; a partner in helping them be smarter, do things better, help them fly in achieving their own business aims. A provider is someone who does something for you, rather than someone who works with you.

I think some person thought "Provider" might be a good term since most of us have a "health services provider."  However, that's what the insurance companies call them. I call them doctors.  I also don't think I'm generally getting great service from most of them. It's not a great model to follow.

Finally, if you are looking to evolve into anything, consider the word "communications." Printing is a communications medium. We help people get key messages across to defined target audiences. Traditionally our channel has been print on paper, and print on non-paper.  Moving forward, we still fervently believe it's a viable and important medium.  However, our goal is help you communicate effectively in any way that makes sense for you, and I'm willing to bet donuts to dollars print is part of the sensible solution.

P.S. And this isn't to suggest you become a "Solutions Provider" either. For more on this topic, see my article "Identity Crisis"in the NAPL Business Review from August 2008.

~ Rhona Bronson

Don't Jump on the Blog Train: Why Not to Blog Part 2

Here are three more reasons why not to blog.  In a world where everyone wants you to jump on board the "Social Media Express Train, there are a few good reasons to stay at the station.    

1. Before you get on a train you should know where you're going. 
2. When people get off the train at your station, it should be a welcoming environment where they want to stay awhile.
3. Before you get on the train, you should know if you have time to take the trip.

Putting it back in business speak:

Mission. Before you jump into anything, you should know why you're doing it and what you hope to accomplish. Does a blog fit in with your marketing plan?  Who are you trying to reach and what do you want to communicate?  Finally, why are you using this medium through which to communicate?  If you don't know, then you're not ready to blog.

Priorities. Your first priority in the Internet Age should still be your web site.  This may change over time, but for now, it's your home base -- or for this analogy -- the train station.  The purpose of blogs and other social media are to drive people to your web site.  Therefore, before you go taking off for  parts unknown, make sure your destination (web site) is a place that visitors feel welcomed and want to visit when their own "Search Train Express" pulls into your station.

Time. There's only so much of it in a day. Do you, or the person blogging for you, have the time? Most companies I see have never figured out how to do a print or e-newsletter much less a blog. I could (and would) argue that a blog is easier than a newsletter, but the underlying issues are the same. Do you have the time to consistently post to a blog on a very, very regular schedule similar to a reliable train schedule?

Pro-bloggers post a minimum of once a day, with many using their blogs like Twitter and posting several times a day. In my opinion, this is not necessary in the business environment, but at least once a week is crucial. And, here's where a blog is very different from a newsletter. Newsletters are acceptable in monthly and quarterly cycles. Blogs are not.

If you want to get started in blogging, don't let me dissaude you. In fact, contact me. I'd love to help. You could be up and blogging with just a one-hour phone consultation. But, if you're not blogging, don't beat yourself up. You just may not be ready to jump on board.

~ Rhona Bronson

Why Not to Blog - Part 1

I'm a big fan of blogging but I don't recommend it for most people or printers.  In a speech last October  I provided 9 do's and 1 don't for marketing in the digital age. Blogging was my recommended Don't. Here's three reasons why.

1. Most blogs fail.  It's that simple. The reasons they fail are also simple. The writers lose interest, commitment, don't think anyone is reading them, don't market the blogs, don't engage readers.... this list is endless.

2. Blogs are not websites.  They need to have a person, or defined persons, updating them regularly with a unique voice. A website represents a company. A blog represents a person.  That's why a company gets a website and a CEO may have blog.

3. Blogs require talent. Writing talent to be specific.  Most printers are not writers. To be read, the blog first needs to be written and, again, in a personal voice. So, if you are going to delegate the blog to a talented employee, know he or she has to also have the authority to write in his or her voice, not yours. Blogs should never be ghost written. 

In my GraphExpo October speech, I gave other reasons blogging may not be for you.  I'll save that for next week. Meanwhile, it should come as no surprise that a huge percentage of blogs are abandoned or fail. In today's New York Times, an article on blogging noted that 2008 research showed only 7.4 million out of 133 million blogs had been updated in the last 120 days of the study as tracked by Technorati.  

Keep in mind that that doesn't mean that 83% of blogs have failed. Many blogs are designed to be short term. For instance, one created by Julie Powell ran for just over a year, the time during which she was testing Julia Childs recipes.  It was designed to be a diary of her one year experience. That blog resulted in the book Julie & Julia and an upcoming summer movie in which Amy Adams plays Julie and Meryl Streep is Julia. I highly recommend the book for any potential bloggers. It was instrumental in helping me launch my first blog in 2006, and it is still active today.

If you want to learn more about social media trends other than blogging, sign up for the NAPL's June series at www.napl.org/summerwebinars.  This week we'll be discussing Search and things printers can do to be found online for free.  On June 23, I'll be teaming up with Susan Wittner to discuss social media trends including Twitter. Hope to see you there. 

~ Rhona Bronson

Blankety Blank Marketing

There's always a new type of marketing on the horizon.   Here's a short list of just some of your choices

• Permission Marketing
• Guerilla Marketing 
• Duct Tape Marketing 
• Experiential Marketing 
• Integrated Marketing 
• Inspired Marketing  
• Middle Finger Marketing 
• Digimarketing 
• Neuromarketing   

And the list could go on.  How can you know which is right for you?  Can you do one and not the other? 

Here's the answer. Don't get intimidated by the jargon. Most great marketing is based on never- changing fundamentals, not the least of which include amazing creativity, intuition, risk-taking, knowledge of the market, and a clear understanding of what you have to offer and why it's wanted and needed.

In fact, most new marketing trends are merely the name of a marketing book that needs selling. Marketing authors represent some of the best marketing minds in the world. It's why they're worth reading. It's also why they realize that a new book better have a catchy new title in order to sell. They know you do judge a book by it's cover (which includes its title, promise, and creative appeal).

Moral of the story:  What do you call what you sell?  If you're selling printing, we've all read that book already. If you want to sell your wares to today's print buyers, reconsider what you're calling what you sell.  Make what you're selling sound like something the customer wants and needs to buy. It makes the sale that much easier, and positions you that much higher as an innovative company worth the customer's time and attention. 

P.S.  Middle finger marketing is a new term floating on the web.  It refers to a writer, Greg Verdino, and his recent experience flying with a branded airline. The experience was less than wonderful and he was somewhat understanding until, once back on the ground he spotted a billboard for the same airline during a taxi ride. Knowing the cost of a billboard ad, he figured  the airline could have likely have had a better ROI if it spent a bit more on great customer service and less on advertising. He dubbed the experience middle finger marketing since he felt that, in the end, it best reflected how the airline felt about him as a customer. Here's the link to the full story. It's worth the read. 

~ Rhona Bronson

Who's Out There Anyway?

Marketing has always been about reaching the right people  It the olden days, gosh -- what ... 12 years ago?--  it was still about mass marketing -- reaching the masses.  Then, along came Pepper & Rogers (t and everything was about 1:1. Get to one person at at time with a personalized message and make them feel special.  Was Rogers related to Mr. Rogers perchance? I think not. That Rogers cared about neighborhoods.

 Soon thereafter came Seth Godin with permission marketing.... even if you personalized the message you'd better make sure you had permission to talk to the person. It's kind of the Victorian version of marketing -- speak only when you're spoken to.

And now, we have social media -- which is probably as anti-social as you can get.  It's not personal, most people have pseudonyms or pseudo-pictures (also known as avatars) and the game is again about numbers (i.e. how many followers do you have on Twitter?).  Never mind that half my followers are people I never heard of and people who shouldn't want to follow me, but are hoping against hope that I'll follow them back.  It's reverse mass marketing!

This is what hasn't changed in marketing over the years.  It's all about people.  Sometimes we call them targets, sometimes audience.  More recently, we call them community,(there's that Mr. Rogers thing again), but unless some people out there care about our message, product, company, cause -- our marketing has truly fallen on deaf ears.  

Here's the real marketing question:  Whom do you want to reach?  Whom do you want to care about you?  Those are the people you need to account for in your marketing efforts. And without knowing your target, you don't have a marketing plan at all.

~ Rhona Bronson

De-age and Suit Up

What's your age?  Not your chronological or biological age, but your marketing age?  Today's world is rapidly changing as is the media and methods to reach ever emerging audiences.  If you're aging rather than De-aging, my word for staying young at heart and in mind, than you're not well suited for marketing.

In the popular TV series "How I Met Your Mother," the key character Barney (played by Neil Patrick Harris) is always "suiting up" to  successfully  "play the field."  In Marketing, "suiting up" means staying up with trends, ideas, media, and reach methods. It also means having a large dose of creativity and a desire to try new things. It is true tat if something works, you should stick with it. That's why Barney always "suits up." But, it's also true that if you just stick with a "control" and never test new options, you will never find the next great touchpoint for inspiring a customer to do business with you.

Recently I had a discussion with a relatively young woman who wanted to be in marketing. Although I don't know her age, she is clearly younger than me -- at least chronologically. She said she "didn't get" social media, didn't feel inspired to explore it, and her friends on Facebook considered her a "stick in the mud." I noted that in marketing terms she was much older than me and that she was potentially at the end rather than beginning of her marketing career. Why? If she doesn't want to be on Facebook, that's a personal option.  But if you want to be in Marketing, it's not an option. It's akin to saying you don't want to learn to type or speak clearly in the same language as your customer. You're admitting you don't want to communicate with people in their (not your) chosen medium.

When you stop wanting to explore new things, it's time to retire.  That's true in business in general, in the technology sector in particular, and in Marketing overall. In Marketing, a successful person has to have some sense of wonder about the world, the people in it, and what makes them tick. The type of media they like is your clue about how to reach them and is a large part of what makes them tick.

Attached is a modern optical illusion.  I like it better than the more classic  "Old woman/young woman" illusion usually used to make the case that "eye can play tricks."  This one, "Forever Always" by Octavio Ocampo, is not only colorful, but shows both an old woman and old man. Click on  the photo to make it larger. Then take a closer look into their eyes and minds. You'll see youthful thinking. I guess they're both in Marketing!   

~ Rhona Bronson

Strategic Presence vs Tactical Promotion

Last summer I had the honor of teaching parts of the Strategic Management Course at NAPL's Management Institute. Throughout, I was asked when we would get to marketing.  The answer was: through the whole course.  

• When we were discussing mission statements, we were talking marketing. It's hard to do any effective marketing if you don't understand a company's mission.
• When we were talking about vision statements we were talking marketing.  It's difficult to put together a sensible marketing plan if you don't understand where a company is trying to go, or what it hopes people will think and say about it.      

Here's one of the big misunderstandings about marketing -- By definition it is an strategic rather than a tactical endeavor.  Unfortunately, most companies don't view it that way and just want a quick tactic to get some messaging out the door. That's promotion, and if you can't help but confuse marketing with promotion in your mind, just abandon the term.  Instead, adopt the term Strategic Positioning, because,in essence, that's what real, effective marketing is. 

The reason most companies don't have effective marketing is that they are clueless about what their strategic presence needs to be.  And, that's when you know you're still operating in a commodity mentality.   

~ Rhona Bronson

Romano wasn't built in a day

Have you seen Frank Romano's videos? Dating myself, as Tony the Tiger would say: "They're Grrrrreat!"

His last one is on webinars and other topics.  A much earlier one was on Association relevance. It wasn't but soon after I started back at NAPL in December 2007 that people started sending me Frank's video in which he rants about Associations. As the Association's marketing person, it falls to me to respond to such challenges, but being newly back I didn't want to be rash and needed to re-learn the lay of the land.  Basically, in that earlier video, he purported that Associations had "perhaps" seen their day. Here, now is my response rolled up in one to both his older and most current rant.

First, if you're a Lost fan, don't you think Frank looks a little like John Locke? This is said with love because Locke is somewhat the hero of the show and I am both an avid Lost and Romano fan. Both are addicting to watch. Frank's music is more entertaining.

Losties (stealing their name from Trekkies) know that the series is about alternate time lines and realities. Some of the characters have chosen to stay on The Island for all time; some have been lured back.  Some have been forced to live in the past and like it there. Some are committed to a future, if not for themselves than their children. Locke, by the way, is the only one on The Island who seems to know what's going on. There are tons of analogies I could make to printing -- embracing change, succession planning, and not staying on offset island while the world passes by -- but that's way too deep and Lost is mind-numbing enough as it is.

In this recent video, Romano muses that webinars are nice, trade shows are nicer and wouldn't it be great if over the long haul we got back to "human beings talking to other human beings."  Hmmm.  Isn't it associations that largely put on many of the trade shows and annual conferences where industry leaders interact with each other? Isn't it associations who believe firmly in creating communities/networks of people commited to progress and change? 

Romano might say "no", but he also says (in the video) that he's up for debating so I figured I'd go for it. And, isn't marketing about starting a conversation and getting people to talk (hopefully in a positive way about your company, product or service)? This blog has a comments section, so feel free to provide input. 

~ Rhona Bronson

Procrastination is Marketing

Procrastination is good for marketing.  It may not seem so at first glance, but if you delve deeper, you'll see it's so.  Marketing people are usually manic, running around getting things done and meeting deadlines, so they are not generally considered procrastinators.  But, here's the truth: Great marketers do procrastinate.

If you're a fan of CBS Sunday Morning you may have seen the Fast Draw team.  They do illustrations of difficult concepts to help enlighten us visual learners about whatever they feel is important. On Sunday, April 12, they illustrated the concept of procrastination.  Here's what I learned:  the word is derived from Latin where pro means "forward" and crastinus means "belonging to tomorrow." 

Marketing is about looking towards tomorrow.  If you wait to think about marketing until a product is done, it's too late. Great marketing occurs early in the process long before the next product, service or great idea is a reality. Marketing believes that tomorrow will come as will the great next thing, and to be ready for it --  we must dream more about and prepare for tomorrow, or procrastinate.

If you ask most marketing people why they never get to the important stuff, it's because they're busy meeting a tight deadline today.  They are getting things done rather than determining what needs to be done to better position a company.  Now, this post may seem directly opposed to my previous post "Active Tense,"  but it's not.  In that post, I noted that Marketing is about getting something done.  The real key, however, is to think and plan and do the best thing. 

Notice I didn't say the "right thing."  If you wait too long to determine the right thing, you may not do anything at all.  That's not procrastination, which implies you'll do it just later. That's downright quitting and doing nothing. Unfortunately, that's the state of most small business marketing.  Instead, consider procrastinating and having a marketing team, plan and program in place and working within the next three months. You'll be happy you did and you'll be amazed at what the future may look like.

~ Rhona Bronson

Marketing Service Providers

Up until now, I've been wary of printers calling themselves marketing service providers.  Just calling yourself something doesn't make it so.  But at one of the earliest breakout sessions at this year's NAPL Top Management Conference, I stood corrected. Two companies,  BOPI in Illinois and COT Media Group in the Bahamas have made the transition and serve as models for others to follow. 

Keys to the transition include but are not limited to:

Time.  It's not something that happens overnight. It takes a plan, strategy and commitment. But it doesn't take forever. It can be done in a year with foresight and dedication.

Teamwork.  Both organizations use a team approach that involves all many talents including IT, marketing and frequently the top guy in the organization as part of the sales team. 

Identity.  They've renamed their organizations and printing is not in the name.

Structure. The organization has to be fundamentally different.  Same old same old sales tactics won't work, and same old same old compensation structures have to change as well.

Help.  Both companies availed themselves of outside consulting services to help them pave the way and create change within their respective organizations.  They knew change would not just come from within. 

A complex issue is how to change customer's perceptions of the organization.  Change doesn't happen by accident. Just saying you're a marketing service department doesn't make it so. Both BOPI and COT are great examples of making it so.  

~ Rhona Bronson