Tim Andren is partner of Guideas, Inc., a marketing services company.
Tim's blog focuses on the marketing ideas behind building a successful Orange County business.
Victoria Ipri is a very talented copywriter. She writes a blog titled 'The Confident Copywriter.'
Victoria recently posted an entry about Unique Value Propositions, which is an essential read for any business owner or startup entrepreneur.
I wrote her a comment that I wanted to share:
"This is such a crucial aspect to marketing and the life of business. Great job Victoria.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve worked on marketing planning or have been asked to weave marketing into product development for businesses that have little to no UVP in their model whatsoever. Many times we’ve had to get them back to the drawing board on their model before we can even think about marketing. Not so easy to do, but essential nonetheless.
A business model is most potent when it is founded on customers needs and desires first, all of which must be culled from market research and surveying. A stitch in time save nine. In this case spending the extra time on delivering value often simply means the difference between business success and failure."
Marketing and business planning can often get very complex when considering models, charts and statistics, all of which need to be considered independently and respective of each other.
When models and plans have lots of moving parts, the best thing to do is simplify them.
I was recently asked to consult on a plan for marketing Orange County business to national business travelers.
As with any project like this the first question I want to answer is always from the customer's perspective.
"Why should I care?" "What's in it for me?" "Why must I buy from you?"
Answer the simple questions and you've got the roots to a Unique Value Proposition.
Every once in a while it's important to take everything you know and throw it away.
When you bend things and distort them it gives you the fresh perspective you need.
This Peter Merholz study about service design shines new light on the model by completely flipping its order of operation.
His stance:
"Customers have no idea what's going on in those layers below
"interactions", and just end up feeling insulted and abused by these
mercenary mindsets."
Starbucks, Target, and Apple are top of mind brands that have flipped
their approach and seen great success.
The left model begins with a company's structure that often limits
the desired experience from a customer and misses the mark. The right model (pun intended) begins with attractive attributes and awareness that can be channeled into procedures and systems all while increasing brand share.
Is this even possible for your business? What factors do you have to consider?
Tim Andren is the founder of Guideas, Inc. an innovation and marketing company.
As you probably already know Facebook has introduced their new suite of social plugins to the social graph.
Super technical way of saying if you like something you can now click on a button to keep inform others all over web which is tracked back to your Facebook account.
This post was inspired by a 'relentless hustler' (as he described himself) who called my personal cellphone four times over the course of 48 hours. In addition, I was also treated with numerous unsolicited e-mails selling his company’s promotional products.
How do you want to be perceived in business? or life in general?
I'll go out on a limb and assume that you'd like to have a good reputation no matter where you go.
If I'm wrong, feel free to stop reading...
If you’re still with us, we can assume that being well thought of is a given desire for all of us.
So why do so many marketing and sales people forget this?
What is Antibranding?
Antibranding is the practice of aggressive, unsolicited methods that do more harm than good.
Quite often companies assume that they can pound their audience into submission with self-serving ‘type A’ sales or marketing campaigns.
The irony of antibranding is that the business delivering the message (despite their largely good intentions) is actually investing time and money to essentially ruin their own reputation in the mind of the recipient.
Antibranding: Feeling queasy
Have you ever had (or thought you had) food poisoning? An old college friend of mine once got sick after eating tuna and was never able to touch seafood again. She literally freaked out at the thought of eating anything that had seafood in it.
“Taste aversion can occur even though a person knows that an illness occurred because of a virus, not because of food. It does not matter; the body jumps to the conclusion that the food was bad, and the food becomes repulsive to us.”
Antibranding such as unsolicited phone calls and e-mails get filed into the same place in the recipient’s mind and never comes out. It's like losing your brand in a briar patch.
Even if the product is good, poor delivery will put people on the defensive. I recently helped out a startup client who came to me with little to no conversion rate at all and they had no idea why.
At our second meeting they informed me that they were getting some angry Yelp reviews from people responding to their sales approach. Fortunately they were still developing their audience and I was able to talk them out of their marketing ideas before it was too late.
Conclusion: Brands are only as good as the emotive associations they represent. If the message is aggressive, unsolicited or annoying it’s virtually impossible to reverse the association.
Antibranding: It’s all about who?
All-about-me antibranding is much like taking a lady out on a date and insulting her over dinner.
If Salesman Jack is lucky enough to get through to Target Jill, but spends the majority of the conversation rattling off a scripted list, her eyes will surely glaze over as she begins to think of ways to get out of the situation.
In the movie Smart People Dennis Quaid plays a widowed professor who is attempting to woo Sarah Jessica Parker who plays his doctor.
Over a meal, Quaid’s character talks incessantly about himself which results in a very short date.
Luckily he gets a second chance, something very few customers would be willing to give a business after a poorly executed cold-call or storm of e-mails.
Conclusion: Good sales and marketing will never be about what you do ‘to’ your customers.
Antibranding: The sweaty, desperate guy
The ‘sweaty, desperate’ antibranding approach is largely like what I experienced recently.
If a business has to resort to overzealous cold-calling practices or impersonal e-mail blasts, then they’ve helped me make my decision about doing not business with them.
The message being communicated is if somebody needs to sell something that bad, then there must be something wrong with it. Never buy discount sushi.
All marketing is like dating. Do you want to look like the sweaty, desperate guy?
Conclusion: Antibranding comes across as desperate and is detected by our ‘spidey senses’ otherwise known as 'survival skills.' Avoid antibranding with the above practices and you'll save your business a lot of time and money.
Tim Andren is the founder of Guideas, Inc. an innovation and marketing company.
The word is out! The internet can power great marketing ideas, and develop company brands!
On a serious note, blogs and social networks have opened up the doors of business relationships by providing a more intimate connection with the faces behind business.
As I've said before, every sword in business is double-edged.
If a website blog, or Twitter feed are part of your marketing plan then I have just a few quick pieces of advice:
THE GOOD: You have a blog on your website!
THE BAD: There are no posts on it.
THE UGLY TRUTH: You're better off with no blog at all.
THE GOOD: Your website has tons of keywords jammed into the copy!!
THE BAD: No human being on earth can decipher it.
THE UGLY TRUTH: I don't care what SEO monkeys tell you, some people still need to read about what you do.
THE GOOD: You wrote your best blog post ever!
THE BAD: You stole the idea from someone else.
THE UGLY TRUTH: If you want to borrow an idea for part of your post, give a brother some love.
THE GOOD: Your "click here for more info" link is radiantly amazing! Who can resist it's call?
THE BAD: After clicking 5 pages deep, the real call-to-action delivers a form to fill out.
THE UGLY TRUTH: Do I need to explain further?
THE GOOD: Nobody knows what's behind your trending topic linkbait with URL shortener!
THE BAD: ...and nobody cares.
THE UGLY TRUTH: Consider this brand suicide.
Almost forgot, don't use the term "startup junkie", or "human capital". If I have to explain...well, I guess it won't make sense.
Tim Andren is the founder of Guideas, Inc. an innovation and marketing company.
Dennis Quaid plays a widowed professor who is attempting to woo Sarah Jessica Parker who plays his doctor.
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