Good marketing strategies, tried and true, are hard to pin down these days, perhaps because they are hard to articulate in few words.

However, there’s help, from the excellent book Kellogg on Marketing.  In the book you’ll find ten elements of a good marketing strategy.  These elements are receiving a lot of attention by smart people in business.  We’re including them in our client’s marketing plans – and we think you should including them in your plans, as well.  (Here’s the best part: they are easy to understand and measure.)

The table below came from research notes we did for a client back in 2002-3. It proved helpful in focusing the content of boardroom presentations and in preparing various communications.  The attributes are still in play and performing well. We hope this list (and the book) will be helpful to you, too, as you seek to innovate in today’s new market.

Look to see which ones your company has employed is or is working to employ. Which ones have you found to be most effective? Which ones haven’t you pursued that merit attention?  Let me know what you think: zself@appleadv.com.

(more…)

Filed under: Bank Marketing & Advertising, Business At Its Best, Marketing, Small Business Services by Zack Self
No Comments »

I came across a good reminder to think about challenges differently to accomplish a goal. Thirty-three years ago Paul MacCready approached a challenge creatively and won. He devised a technological solution to win the Kremer Prize for human powered flight with his innovative Gossamer Condor. All the other teams designed traditional aircraft that were too heavy. Mr. MacCready thought that the prize could be reached by flying slowly. This creative idea lead to a series of innovations with light-weight aircraft. He and his company went on to greater accomplishments and recognition. The innovative Gossamer Condor is now prominently featured at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC.

It is good to remember that creativity is critical to the success of your personal and business endeavors. Make sure that you and yours are within an environment that fosters creative thinking and rewards the process of innovation. This is harder to attain than it should be and may require drastic action. But if the game is worth the candle, then any action that will produce creative innovation is certainly worthwhile.

The Gossamer Condor story is worth your time to read. There have long been victors who were creative enough to approach challenges differently, who achieved distinction with innovative attempts to reach their goal.

I trust that such an approach continues to inspire you and produce great accomplishment for you and yours as it has for us. Our firm has enjoyed the great honor and privilege of helping people and their companies thrive with innovative applications of creative thinking since 1971.

[Thanks to Wikipedia and Wired.com for the inspiration.]

Filed under: Business At Its Best, Creativity, Technology by Zack Self
No Comments »

Here’s a simple and efficient way to evaluate yourself and your employees. Clients, too, for that matter. Where do you think you and your closest friends would “plot” on the graphic below? Where would you plot your best employee? The worst?

Pretty neat. Like all brilliantly simple concepts, it is clear and useful. And it’s teachable. Yes, it is intuitive. What I like most is that it puts intuition to paper. It also helps to add volume to that little voice inside your head that is sometimes unfortunately ignored.

I learned about this technique from the very bright Melissa Murray, Chief Inspiration Officer of Mosaix Group and currently in Asheville, NC. Like most of us Melissa detests having to deal with dumb issues related to people management, but unlike most people she figured out how to deal with the problem.

This new “tool” allowed her to make good assessments quickly so she could get on with her real work. She developed it while traveling the world producing events for large corporations back in a former life. She found that time and distance amplified strengths (and defects) in the people working on the account with her.

The technique is founded on the principle that a person’s ability to perform in a progressive organization can be isolated into two discrete camps: (1) their knowledge and (2) their motivation. And, it is a way to evaluate the degrees of each component. One person can have more knowledge, or greater motivation, than another can.

Recently, I asked her to lunch to refresh me on how this system worked. The diagram above is a slightly modified version of what she drew.

Here’s how it works

(more…)

Filed under: Business At Its Best, Keep It Simple by Zack Self
No Comments »

“What” you are is one thing. “Who” you are is a whole ‘nother thing.

What you are is functional, it can be bought. But who you are, now there’s something that can’t quite be quantified and priced.   It is that which makes you unique, different. It is that which sets you apart from the competition.  It is, to borrow a phrase, ‘priceless’ because it gives your customers a reason to be loyal to you, even in today’s commodity-driven market.

What people mean to each other is what makes a romance last.
What a business means to its customers is what makes it thrive.

There has been a lot of talk lately of the deterioration of brand value.  The numbers don’t lie, consumers are now moving in unprecedented numbers to ‘generic’ products and services that cost less than ‘premium’ brands.   But, what happens when two similar products are similarly priced?  In that case, the difference is distinguished only by personality. So,… (more…)

Filed under: Advertising, Business At Its Best, Marketing by Zack Self
No Comments »

Q:        What’s the real pay-off from Information Technology?

A:         Making a positive difference to the customers.

The businesses (and their consultants) who maintain a precise focus on the customer value delivered by IT will thrive.  Those who don’t won’t. (more…)

Filed under: Business At Its Best, Technology by Zack Self
No Comments »

“Being relevant”  determines everything about a business — what it sells, how it sells, how it prices what it sells — but especially should it impose a discipline on customer-facing communication.  So, how are you doing with your customers?

Here’s how you find out if you’re relevant – or not.

Evaluate your company’s communication.  A majority of companies large and small fall into three categories listed below, each with an example from actual Twitter and Facebook posts: (more…)

Filed under: Bank Marketing & Advertising, Business At Its Best, Communication, Public Relations, Small Business Services, Social Media by Zack Self
1 Comment »

Maybe you didn’t see our tweet about Walmart’s “Project Impact”.  You may have missed something important. (Not that following our Twitter feed is worth your daily attention… yet.)

The important part is that the company who has kicked off their own “Project Impact” is the same company who operates a massive retail a store in just about every market in the country, who even now has an increasing “share of wallet” and who may just be your customers’ next bank.  Walmart thinks they know how to take ANY customer away from ANY company.  And you know, they’re on to something.

The Walmart strategy posits that winning the customer experience battle gains ground important in the war of corporate survival. As an idea, this isn’t new.  Big companies typically launch these “experience” campaigns that die from committee decisions and Corporate Attention Deficit Disorder (CADD).

But this time Walmart’s mission feels different.  This is a company that has proven it knows how to win.

My recommendation: while reviewing and scoping your company’s opportunities  think about just one segment that when executed properly will make other opportunities easier to realize.

The customer experience matters more  today than it did thanks to the internet.  Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and the other ‘people-power machines’ can make or break your opportunities — worse, your brand — faster than you can say “UNPLUG!”

The companies who take the customer experience seriously, and continue to innovate in delivering “surprise and delight” will win.  The companies who sit and stare at their computer screen all day will go the way of dinosaurs and Circuit City.

Stop working out the old stodgy marketing plan and get ready for the new economy.  Walmart gets it, and perhaps as important, they have the money to so muddle the market that it won’t matter if they screw it up in transition.

What are you doing to defend yourself against Walmart’s Project Impact? It’s a big deal.  I think you need to call me.  Today.  Or RT the tweet to get my attention.

A company empowered within its own local markets can win any customer experience battle. All that is needed is a passion to thrive and a good relationship with a marketing partner who gets it.  If I may suggest one that’s been in the same family and with the same ownership since 1972?  You get where this is going…

Filed under: Bank Marketing & Advertising, Business At Its Best by Zack Self
No Comments »

Here’s an idea to help you get very good work done and beat the competition while you’re at it.

I don’t know about you, but now email is a downer and I am tired of it.  It’s become like some kind of inert and ugly time-bomb.  I rarely know how important an email is.  Can I put off reading it for a couple of hours?  Or will it cause me or my company pain if I don’t address it RIGHT NOW?

“Getting behind” email influx feels like failure.  It brings a lot of stress thinking of all those waiting emails… responses, deadlines, expectant parties.  Vacations aren’t worth taking any more because of that problem.  Unbelievable.

Email has gotten out of control.  It has taken over the work-flow by being just like a ringing telephone: disruptive, persistent and demanding.  And you don’t even know that if by giving incoming emails your attention, even for a moment, you’re better served.

Lobbing email volleys back and forth retards innovation and truly great work.  From the CEO to the clerk, people are too busy to help the company assume a leadership position.

If you have this insane problem fix it now.

The people you rely on to get work done are very probably stuck in the horrible email mire.  Help them.  Leave it to your competition to stay on the email track to certain corporate death.  In fact, kill the email problem and by so doing you add another way to own your market.  (That, and the fact that you hire me to help you with your marketing & communication should just about do it.)

A few years back one of my clients had a Vice President who was often maligned for having an Inbox with “too many messages in it”.  This VP had to go to class to learn how to move items out of the Inbox.  The object of the exercise was to show that the employee was “managing the Inbox, which established that work was receiving appropriate priority and would be accomplished.”  I always thought that the problem would have been solved altogether by helping that employee to stop getting all those dumb emails.

My solution: just stop.

1. Stop thinking that you have to read emails as they come in.  And tell your employees that they don’t have to, either.
2. Stop thinking that every email (even from important clients) is as important as a ringing telephone.  And tell your employees that it’s OK to take a breather from time to time.

Once you (and your company) cross that psychological hurdle and get control of email, work gets fun, interesting, promising.  You can dream a little, ask the “what if” questions and go find the answers.

Tame email.  Enjoy the moment and opportunity to re-orient your natural magnetic North, your ability to turn a buck.

Tell me how it goes.  Respond by commenting to this article.  Just don’t email me.  I’m behind as it is.  I’ve been working on a way to sell to people who stare at their Inbox all day.

Filed under: Business At Its Best by Zack Self
1 Comment »

What do you do when your ad budget is in tatters, but you need to get the word out?

You reflect on Mr. Adnan Kashoggi’s comment above: Doing well is the result of doing good.

And, to help stimulate your thinking, I have a press report about the E-ONE Company and how they did well by targeting a give-away at a market segment closely tied to their  business.  (The entire release appears below.)

Here’s the story

E-ONE manufactures fire fighting equipment. To promote themselves at a recent fire equipment convention, it came up with the idea to give away a fire truck to the fire department that got the most votes as the “most deserving” department in the country. Of course, getting the most votes would take a lot of work and a lot of conversation about E-ONE’s equipment. So, E-ONE was smart about their give-away. The interesting things to me about this promotion is:

• The winning department was from Powellsville, NC, population 259!  (Powellsville is located in the middle of nowhere, about 50 miles west of Elizabeth City, NC.)
• The Powellsville VFD managed to get 7,000 votes – out of the 16,000 (yep, 16,000) total. That’s a lot of buzz about E-ONE.  (I’d say the Powellsville VFD has some pretty plucky friends who love them intensely.)
• There were 650 fire departments that entered the contest.  I don’t know how many VFDs there are in the country, but I do know that 650 prospective fire truck purchasers is a LOT of prospective fire truck purchasers.

So, what do you think? Did E-ONE get a bunch of publicity? Yep. Did they get publicity on the cheap? Well, the fire truck they gave away was “valued” at $170,000, which, I think, means that E-ONE has less than $100,000 in the deal. Based on what I know about advertising costs, I’d say E-ONE  got maybe $250,000 in press for $100,000. Not too shabby. (And there were other sponsors involved and they may have cut E-ONE’s cost even more.)

So, is there a lesson here for a banker?

Would any of you like to talk about it? Maybe, you’d like to do something similar? Call me. We can help you do this.

(more…)

Filed under: Bank Marketing & Advertising, Business At Its Best, Public Relations by George Self
No Comments »

Who are you, anyway?

I learned this from an old ad man: Chances are your employees can’t correctly tell you what their job is today, so you need to tell ‘em right now so as they know it. Put it on a sign on the wall or hang it from the ceiling.

You’d think it would be real easy to say what your job is. For your employees it is generally anything but straight-forward. Everybody has to be all things to all people. If you get emails you have to be a good writer, voice mail a good responder, cell phone a good text-er for crying out loud. I know of one large B2B company who mandated that all employees create their own Facebook and Twitter sites in order to “better understand and communicate with tomorrow’s customers”. Good grief. No wonder businesses struggle to turn a dime.

And to add to the problem, we got too arcane along the way. We tend to over-think our functional roles and worry about missing something important in their engraved (and public) description. God forbid we leave room for a critic to probe a gap (real or imagined).

Stop the madness! If you can’t say who you are in two sentences or less you don’t know who you are. Period. Make the adjustment or get out of way of those who have a clear sense of purpose in your organization.

Get your mission statement off the wall, and re-write it. Keep it clean and simple: “My job is to produce [product or service here] that pleases the customer and makes the company money.” Hang it from the ceiling, wide and short. Make an oversized version of it and hang it on the wall. Then get everybody together and get them to repeat it back to you. Those that can repeat it accurately and without hesitation should get a reward.

I defy you to come up with a more accurate mission statement that your employees can recall and that will satisfactorily guide their behavior.

In my own company our mission is simple: Please the client with great marketing work; be profitable. The employees know that profitability hinges upon happy clients, regular time sheets, efficient production and professional-grade thought. Great content, of course. New techniques, research, value-added items, delivery on dead-line, good client communication, budget-tracking are all part of the package. But I don’t need to weigh the mission statement down with all those details.

“Keep your eye on the ball” is a reminder that the even the most seasoned professional needs. The simpler the reminder, the easier to remind.

What’s your mission statement? Post your comments to this entry or email it to me. I want to hear how your simple focus has improved your business.

Filed under: Business At Its Best by Zack Self
No Comments »