The Marketing Mix | official blog of the Marketing Mentor community

Guest Post: Web-Savvy, but Marketing-Lazy?

Today's guest post comes from Jim Koscs, Marketing Mentor client and owner of AudaMotive Communications LLC, which specializes in PR and marketing writing for auto industry clients. It's a fascinating look at the assumptions we make based on how we look at the new, "useful" tools we're implementing, and a reminder to take a second look at them through the eyes of our prospects and customers.

I’m not a lazy person, but launching my web site last year (after eight years in business!) triggered a change in the way I marketed myself -- and not for the better.

In a conversation about introductory marketing letters, Ilise asked if I send samples with them. I said no, because I had a web site to host a wide selection of work samples. Isn’t that what a web site is for, to save the time, effort and expense of sending out samples?

The first thing I did when I hung out my shingle in 1999 was to buy the shingle –- a domain. But for the next eight years, having the domain in my e-mail was the extent of my “online presence.” During those years, I sent marketing letters that detailed why I was the ideal automotive writer for a potential client. Each was targeted and succinctly written, with bulleted lists outlining my pertinent experience.

I would include 2-3 samples to match some of those bullets -– a press release, speech or brochure … whatever applied. That all changed when I put up my web site. “No need to send samples, I’ll just give them the web address, and they can download all the samples they want!”  At the same time, I also shortened my marketing letters. Why fill up the page with details when they can read all about me on the web site? Marketing suddenly got easier, and, with no samples to send, cheaper, too!

How did all this work? Not very well.

As I finally realized (with Ilise’s help), I’ve been assuming that anyone receiving my newly abbreviated letters would be so intrigued with my claims that they’d visit my web site. Once there, the many samples and client testimonials would compel them to call me. Too bad web links in a printed letter are not clickable.

To visit my web site, a prospect would need to be at a computer and be willing to type my URL into a web browser. Recipients that do not make that effort are left with a brief, fairly uninformative letter, but no samples of my work and no way to know if I am for real. (I also do send e-mail to prospective clients, and those of course link to my web site.)

So, for my “new” strategy, I’ll be digging through my computer files for the “classic” marketing letters I used to send … and I’ll be including samples again. Now, I’ll say something like, “This is just a small sampling of my work. I invite you to visit my web site to see a full range of ways I have helped my clients.”

Who's the biggest Brand You?

I don't know if it's Yellow Volkswagen Syndrome or what, but lately, every damned thing I read seems to be either about personal branding or social media (or personal branding via social media.)

Wired.com has jumped into the personal brand-mania pool this week with a poll; they're having readers decide who the most effective self-promoter (i.e., personal brand-er) is.

I have mixed feelings about the list. Maybe it's the Groucho effect; maybe I'm taking it all too seriously. Wouldn't be the first time. Surely there's no big deal about throwing up a silly little poll for fun.

I guess that's it: it doesn't seem like everyone is having fun. A few of the entries are genuinely thought-provoking. Was Jesus the world's best, all-time self-promoter? A rather strong case could be made. Or an equally strong case that our man from Jerusalem was just doing his thing for the sake of the doing, and that people around him leveraged him as a brand.

P.T. Barnum is a good bet—why isn't he higher up? I mean, I love Tim Ferriss as much as the next nerd (hey! I voted for him!), but is he going to have the enduring power of an Edison or even a Muhammed Ali, both extremely savvy self-promoters? And I really don't know—I'm just sayin'.

Or maybe I'm asking. What do you think? Would love for you to bop over to the list, come back and let us know what you think. (Voting optional!)

Lesson from a Girl Scout

I always claimed it was in my blood to be self employed, but I no longer think that's true.

Now it's clear that my early experiences -- buying wax lips from the ice cream man at Halloween and reselling them to fellow 3rd graders -- planted that seed of "entrepreneurship" and showed me how freeing it could be to work for myself.

I also, of course, sold Girl Scout Cookies, which is probably why this article from the NY Times this weekend hit home. (Free registration may be required to read article.)

There are a few helpful sales and marketing tips in there, too.

Too little, too late from Starbucks?

Last week in USA Today I stumbled across an interesting article about Starbucks. Most of us never think about the coffee giant as being in trouble or needing to reinvent themselves but that was the underlying theme at their annual meeting in Seattle this past week.

Starbucks' chief Howard Schults took the Steve Jobs approach in trying to inspire his team to focus on the next big thing. What would that be for Starbucks, you might ask? What would be Starbucks’ version of an iPhone or other bit of marketing genius that would increase foot traffic in their stores?

You may think it’s some kind of a new hybrid, "green" coffee bean—I did, too, for a moment. So imagine my surprise when they announced that they are going back to their roots: grinding fresh coffee in each of the stores, introducing a new coffee called “Pike Street Blend” (named after the location of the first Starbucks store), starting a social networking website and implementing a loyalty card program.

It’s clear to me that Starbucks has woken up and realized that they lost the one thing that people were drawn to in the first place, the one thing that made them a huge international success: connecting people. You see, At Starbucks, it’s not about coffee. It’s about creating and maintaining a community.  And that’s what marketing is all about. Creating connections and building a community.  Giving your customers a place where what they buy connects to their core values.

My fear for Starbucks’ strategy is that it may be a little too late. Networking sites, loyalty cards or fresh ground beans have been around for a while now. For Starbucks to position themselves as an industry leader, with new ideas and exciting fresh approaches, this might come off as desperate and could actually be the beginning of the end. I wish their ideas could wow me like Steve Jobs’ and I wish I liked their coffee enough to want to go into one of their stores.

What to do when you get into overwhelm

A client writes, "I'm so busy, I can't get to my work. I have two freelancers working on projects. I spend most of my time writing proposals, meeting with new clients and prospects. Half my time is non-billable. What am I doing wrong? How do I make more of my time billable?

Our answer comes from Lee Silber (a.k.a. Creative Lee), author of 11 books, including Time Management for the Creative Person (and a few others in that series).

We can't have it all—at least not all at once. We must make choices about what to focus on now. It's at the core of our success—the choices we make about how we spend our time. To do this we have to separate good from great. (Of course it's "great" we want.) To do this I suggest using a little left-brain thinking in the planning process. (We can save our right brains for creating.)

When left-brainers feel overwhelmed they make lists. They also prioritize what's most important. We right-brain thinkers are good at spinning all our plates at once and only worrying about the one that looks like it's about to fall. So, let's try the left-brain approach and see how it works.

1. Make a list of everything you are spending time on. All your projects, proposals, personal stuff, and so on.
2. Next to each one rate it with dollar signs ($) 1-5. One means it has very little chance to produce revenue and five means it has a good chance.
3. Then rate each item on your list using a check mark on how urgent it is. One check means it's not urgent, five means you need it done.
4. Using a heart, rate each item based on how much you want to work on it 1-5. How excited are you by it?
5. Lastly, using plus signs, rank the item based on it's importance to your career, or any other criteria you feel is key.

Now you can see what is of the highest priority, and what to focus your time and talent on.

Try this and let us know what happens.

Guest Post: The Send first/Phone first dilemma

I don't know of anyone (probably because my contact list is light on masochists) who actually likes cold calling.

On the other hand, I'm reluctant to rule it out as a marketing technique because I keep hearing stories of how well it works, if done well. Marketing Mentee Jennifer Neal, Managing Partner of K9 Design Co., recently devised a great hack for cold calling that not only eases things considerably, but is showing great results.

I'll let her tell the rest...

For those of you who are daunted by the thought of calling a prospective lead or contact please read this.

Although I am not opposed to "cold calling" I don't love it and I can usually find 20 other "more important" things to do before I finally psych myself up to start them only to realize it's 4:55 p.m.

Over the last month, Ilise and I have worked together to write a letter that accompanies a sample publication that we are particularly proud of. This letter and the sample will go out -- 10 per week -- to a very targeted list that we are attempting to do business with. The snail mail cost is $2.65 per package plus the fancy envelope that we chose to send it out in. That's $26.50 per week.

The results have blown even me away. I cannot believe how easy it makes it for me to call them now. My first 2 calls were off-the-charts-great with referrals to other leads and purchasers of my services. Even though I still get the odd crunchy voice and many voice mails, we now we have something to talk about. Several of the contacts have been so happy to know that specialists like us exist and immediately have told me about upcoming opportunities they want us involved in.

It took us some difficult business soul searching to finally bite the bullet and decide to niche in one particular area but once we did and started to market ourselves that way - the possibilities seem to be endless. I can't imagine being a jack-of-all-design trades now.

So please take my advice and do 2 things:

1. Target your business and I mean target your business -- it makes marketing so much easier and matter of fact. (I am a convert!)
2. Create what I call a "cold calling crutch" and get something out to your targets before you call them -- it makes the calls easier. We all deserve for this to be easy.

Take the time and do this - you'll be so happy you did. At first I felt it was a cop out to have this "crutch" but now I think it is just brilliant! It's my new marketing thing.

Ten 10-minute self promotion activities

Reader Lisa Neal sent me a post she wrote, based on a post she saw at CIO, which gave me the idea (not so original, actually) to initiate a similar post here.

The idea is 10 Things You Can Do In Ten Minutes to Promote Yourself.

Here's the first:

Check out one blog and post a comment that links back to your blog or web site. (A little self-serving, I know, but humor me.)

What else?

Everything I know about networking I learned at SXSW

A couple of full days after returning from the glorious madness that is the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) Festival, I'm starting to get a bit of perspective on the event, as well as the use of my voice again.

But because there is still so much to process--this really is the big-mama, conference-to-end-all-conferences for anyone involved with social media, web design & development, interactive content, or any other kind of general iNerdery--I'm going to do it in the form of a list, to help me further sort my thoughts. And, hopefully, to make it easier for you to comment on/add to them.

Besides, we all know I'm mad queer for lists!

1. Networking, like marketing, begins way before the event itself.

In addition to prepping your head for the onslaught of new & old faces (introverts, I'm talking to you!), it is unbelievably helpful to get up to speed on who's coming, what they do, what they write about--even what they look like. There's kinda no excuse for not doing this anymore, between Google, Twitter, RSS feeds/readers and email. SXSW makes it dead simple by providing an online registry of attendees; check to see if your event does something similar.

2. Do not put off until tomorrow the person you can meet tonight.

Time flies at a good event. (You're attending a good event, right?) Everyone says it because it's true: if there's someone you really want to meet, figure out how to meet them as soon as you can. Make contact before if it's someone you "know" online and want to hook up with in real life. In addition to making sure you'll actually meet them, it's a good way to ramp up to full conference speed. My first-day breakfast with my German programming friend whom I met at SXSWi two years ago gave me the strength I needed to deal with lots of new faces.

3. Don't buddy up too much.

It's great to hook up with friends, but beware the friend-as-crutch. Yes, it was harder hitting the festival without my boyfriend this year; it was mildly terrifying to put myself out there again and again. But really, everyone is doing the same thing, most people are really quite lovely, and the ones who aren't? News flash: you don't want to hang out with them anyway.

4. Keep cards handy, but...

Chris Brogan--social media dude extraordinaire, networking god and good friend--has great advice on handing out cards without being creepy:

Another tip, don't do the card-swap/handshake-at-the-same-time thing. The other person might not need your relationship, and you might not need theirs. Instead, when it's about time to break off the conversation, say, "I'm really excited we connected. I'd love to talk more with you. May we exchange cards?" See how that feels? Totally different.

Full interview with lots more networking goodness here.

5. Ask, and you shall receive.

Before heading out, I sent out my March newsletter with my own networking tips gleaned so far. I used the opportunity to say I was hitting SXSW and to ask for any tips other people might have. Got a slew of great ones, including the importance of follow-up (separates the men from the boys, as it were) and about reframing the way you look at a sea of new faces (think "welcoming & warm" not "scary monsters who want to feast on your entrails"--a point  Kathy Sierra illustrated brilliantly in her panel about wooing users.)

***

If you're interested in knowing more about the SXSWi experience in terms of how it can crack your head open and fill it up with inspiration, you won't do much better than this round-up I found (on Twitter, via Hugh MacLeod, aka @gapingvoid) by Daniel Light.

I also wrote up my experience at this year's conference, and how it compared to the last (also first!) one. Truthfully, I doubt I'll ever be super-comfortable with meeting bunches of new people. But the more I do it, and the more I know about how to do it, the less mystifying it gets.

And so, of course, I have to ask:

Did you go? What was your experience? And if you didn't, what have you learned about networking that changed your attitude towards it?

Guest Post: How to go from pro bono to corporate sponsor

EDITOR'S NOTE: I've been immersed in Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Effective People lately, and one of the most significant lessons I'm getting from it is the benefit of striving for solutions that are not me-based or them-based or even compromises, but we-based, synergistic solutions.

That's exactly what designer and Marketing Mentor client Jonathan Cleveland did to turn around a situation with a pro bono client. I loves me a win-win situation—and Covey would be proud! And now, here's Jonathan...

A recent tip from Peleg changed my status from “in-kind” donor to Corporate Sponsor for a nationally recognized non-profit client. Here’s how it happened.

For over 6 years, my firm, Cleveland Design, has done work for this non-profit at a reduced fee, but the donated “time” has never gotten me much exposure, which is one of the reasons I did it. I was always stuck in the Thank You list next to the company that donated the napkins.

When I first approached the client about improving our status, they claimed they didn’t have a category to put us in since we weren’t making a cash donation. Eventually they came up with “Marketing and Design Sponsor,” which was better. But I kept seeing the other companies listed above us and I knew our time was more valuable then the cash they were donating.

Peleg’s tip was simple: Invoice the client for the full value of the project, then turn around and write them a check for the portion you want to donate.

I approached the client with this plan and they were open to investigating it with their higher ups and legal department. Because this client is on a retainer with us, it was easy to set up a contract to reflect what we would bill them each month and what we would donate each month. Soon, the contract was signed by both parties and we automatically became an official “Corporate Sponsor.”

This way of giving is beneficial to all parties, and gives us the advantage of being a major donor and recognized as a Corporate Sponsor. It also gives us an advantage for tax purposes, since donated time does not count for charitable gifts, but donated cash does.

Plus, being seen as a Corporate Sponsor has changed our status in the community that this non-profit serves. At past fundraising events, we were invited but had to wait and see if there were empty seats at the assigned dinner tables. Now, we get one of the prime tables up front and our logo is plastered all over the promotional collateral and signage.

This is now the only way we will work with non-profits in the future. It gives us the recognition we deserve for our talent and time. And, it turns into great free publicity for our firm.

Want to review our new book?

We just received the advance copies of our new book, The Designer's Guide to Marketing and Pricing, and boy is it beautiful! And heavy. We did not expect it to feel so substantial, but it does, because it is!

We're ramping up the promotion machine so that when it hits the stores within by mid-April, there will be good buzz going.

We need your help getting the word out, so if you have a blog or newsletter and want to review (or excerpt from) the book, email me at ilise (at) marketing-mentor (dot) com with your name, a link to your blog/newsletter/etc. (or the name of it, if it's a hard-copy publication).

Ten copies, ready and waiting! One of them could be yours for the asking (and hopefully, a good review!)