Category Archives: Strategizing

5 Cheap Moves Your Brand Can’t Afford

There’s savvy spending and then there’s cutting corners you don’t need to make at the risk of looking shabby in front of others. Avoid these moves to prevent yourself from making a really cheap first impression.

1) The non-company e-mail address

When I see someone with the email address of @aol.com, @gmail.com, @yahoo.com, etc., I have to wonder. It’s perfectly fine to have personal email accounts with something outside of your company name, but it’s not OK in a company email. Do you do this in your spare time? And even if you do, do you want to give that appearance?

No. You don’t. It’s not expensive to get an email with your company name, tagline or some variation. Reserve one and start using it. Now.

2) The off-the-shelf logo

I can appreciate budget-consciousness. But you can differentiate without spending a fortune.

When you buy clip art or off-the-shelf logos from a company, you’re defeating your brand’s ability to stand out before you get out of the gate. It’s important to strive for a look that feels original, not like other brands you’ve seen. You don’t get the attributes of that other brand by association. You look like you wish you were them instead of who you are. Not a good move.

Consider working with a logo designer you can sit down with who has been referred to you from someone you trust. You know – a human being. Not a website that doesn’t understand your goals. When you’re upfront about your budget, you might find some flexibility on their end. Especially if you can be flexible in terms of number of logo options you get.

3) The dime-a-dozen business cards

While your business card may not tell the whole story of you, there’s no reason to go cheap on it. If you give out a card that has a unique texture, shape, embossing and hear them say, “Wow, cool card,” you’re laying the groundwork for a solid first impression – no small thing.

I’ll bet you don’t get that kind of response when you order 5,000 business cards for $50. If you’re getting a whole lot for a little, there’s a reason for it. So you’ll have your cards, which I suppose is better than absolutely nothing, but the opportunity to impress won’t happen. Better to invest more in your business card than less.

4) The static direct mail “explosion”

Oh good! That printer is offering you thousands of direct mail postcards for next to nothing.

But wait.

Are you opening a club or trying to establish a solid personal brand? Before you blanket the world with 5,000 direct mail pieces/flyers, consider this: If it’s a non-personalized piece (or a “static” piece), you may get a response that is less than 1%. So let’s say that takes you down to about 50 pieces that won’t get immediately thrown away. Then let’s say that you chose a broad list of addresses to mail to rather than something targeted around your ideal customer. That takes you down to about 10 pieces.

But among those 10, there are a bunch of variables – timing, budget, competing options and more. All before you’ve taken a first meeting.

This is where the “What have I got to lose?” mentality can take over where numbers and percentages are played, but don’t let it. What you’ve risked is the opportunity to form a first impression that’s customized, such as what printers can now do with personalized printing, even a web address on the piece that sends the recipient to a special landing page. These are the tactics worth spending more on, including list development, which leads us to…

5) The list of “anybodys” in your database

A lot of companies can promise you a list of prospect names for purchase, but be careful. All are not alike. The cheapest might not be offering you the best quality based on your specific criteria, such as a collection of names. How many of those names have been “scrubbed” or updated? And even if they are, are they the right names you’re trying to reach?

Your customer database can be your lifeblood and the less input you have on creating that database, the more you’re leaving to chance. And that’s hampering your efforts early on. When you cut corners by purchasing a list without knowing this information, you’ll not only hurt yourself with a less-than-ideal list, but you’ll also be impacting the things you use that list for.

Wow, the cost of being cheap sure can get expensive, can’t it?

The “Word of Mouth” Trap

Let’s get this out of the way: Positive word of mouth is terrific. I can think of nothing more powerful than an instance where one reliable source tells another person how great a product or service is. It’s instant credibility for your brand.

Unfortunately, there are people who don’t know how to make word of mouth all that it could be. Word of mouth can build business but it can also build complacency in people that benefit from it because those same people believe they don’t need to do anything else or that everything they’re doing currently is just fine. But in time, that kind of philosophy can result in decreased market share or worse.

Still, maybe you don’t see the big deal. All is right with your world. Good things are being said about you, customers seem to be consistent…so who needs anything else when word of mouth is pulling in people for you and the numbers are up?

Well, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that you’d rather have more money than less of it. Which is why I offer forth this little scenario about two companies for you.

Company A has 200 customers. Company A provides great service and a great product but does nothing to encourage its customers to put in a good word about Company A to someone else, like a friend or family member. Still, let’s say that every single customer tells 1 other person about how great Company A is. Those people become customers too.

Company A’s year-end total: 400 customers.

Company B has 200 customers as well. They provide great service and a great product. But they implement a referral program that rewards its customers for referring three friends to become qualified customers – Company B offers a pretty good-sized prize for doing so, but then, the return on investment in getting three new customers for every one is well worth it. PLUS for every successful referral, the customer gets a smaller, intermediate prize. PLUS Company B’s program allows each successful referral to count as one entry into a grand prize drawing, which means the more referrals you make, the better your chances to win.

Company B’s year-end total: 600 customers (at least).

I’d say the difference between doubling your customer base and tripling it can be mighty big, wouldn’t you? Everybody’s company is different, but my point is that while both companies shown here use word of mouth, one chose to cultivate its customer relationships off of that word of mouth with far better results than the one that stuck to the status quo and did nothing.

And by the way, the referral program idea is only one potential way of building on what you have.

Remember, word of mouth is a foundation, not the end result. It’s a springboard for even better results to occur because what you have is a happy customer base – however, just because that’s something that many other businesses would be jealous of doesn’t mean you should sit still.

Specifically, think about two things:

1) Where does your audience interact with your brand?

2) What will your reward for making a successful referral be when you get in front of them?

A better reward does not have to equal more money either. It can be a discount off of one of your products or services (perhaps a discount off of a new product or service you’d like to introduce?).

Word of mouth gives you the opportunity to be proactive and make that goodwill work for you even further. Otherwise, there’s only going to be so many words about you passing through so many mouths.

Is There A “Chicago Style” of Business Development?

Note from Dan: Today’s Chicago Brander post is from guest blogger Steve Congdon of Thunderclap Consulting Group. Drawing on the experience of over 200 pitches, Thunderclap helps marketing communications agencies and other professional service firms win more new business. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Steve and find his blog a must-read for anyone seeking a better way to get into more pitches and improve their close ratio. Call him at 773.637.5203. You’ll thank me after a conversation with Steve.

Steve Congdon, Thunderclap Consulting Group

When you think Chicago and personalities, what comes to mind?
A what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of mentality? Da Bears? An Everyman quality? 
Is there a Chicago style of prospecting and salesmanship?
And, if there is, how might be it applied?

Here are three quick thoughts:

Get belly-to-belly.
No matter what is being sold, conversations lead to understanding, which can lead to sales. In my world, ad agency new business development, going belly to belly could mean exchanging a phone call with an in-person meeting. Or, adding a social event to the pitch process that augments your understanding of “your prospect.” The more you know you know about these people, the more you can understand if you want them as a client and how to make that happen.

Work a bit harder.
For brand stewards, this can mean offering up something free.  For business development professionals, it could suggest doing something unexpected, but helpful for your prospect. Like, for instance, writing up an analysis on some competitive activity. Or sending an email past 9p with a relevant link to a cool online story.

Be real.
Another Midwestern trait. For now, let’s define this as being yourself. Can you imagine George Wendt making a stiff, formal presentation – using huge words that tie him up, making both him and his audience uncomfortable?! Nah. It’s just not his brand.

While I honestly think there may be some positive qualities that prospects might be willing to apply to you when you associate yourself with a “Midwest” or Chicago label, these are more likely to affect business success early in the sales game. By that, I mean the label creates perceptions before you even meet someone. Not a bad thing. Certainly nothing “second” about it, (he wrote proudly).

And, of course, you don’t have to be from these here parts to try any of the above. I happen to know people from both coasts who are very nice, despite wanting ketchup on their hot dog.

So what do you think? Is there a “Chicago Style” of business development? And if so, what are those traits?

There’s A Brand Waiting For You In Your Office.

A new Accenture survey of global marketers yielded some results that at first, may not seem that extraordinary. Among them, marketers said the three most important business issues were improving customer retention and loyalty, acquiring new sales and increasing sales to current customers. The survey went on to say that in the coming year, marketes expect to see their marketing budgets flatline or decline.

OK, that’s probably not a shock to hear. But CMOs also expect to see company sales grow in the coming year. Is this a mixed message? Not necessarily. The translation I see is that in order to move forward, marketers will be expected to do more with less. This is not necessarily as bad as it might seem. How?

Think about the most precious internal resource you have to be developed and most of us will arrive at an answer made of flesh and bone, not machine.

Yes, we have to get routinely smarter about what our customers want and using analytics will help with that. But we also have to get smarter about what our employees want – and that’s the side of the equation that I believe gets missed all too often.

If you have ever worked in an environment where employees are an afterthought, you know this. It’s seen in “meet these deliverables or else” career plans that managers don’t like doing and employees dread. It’s career planning as punishment rather than collaboration. Mass layoffs and severance offers are the routine answer to cost cutting rather than brainstorming on what we can do better to show more value or entice greater referrals. Employees see themselves as being there just to do a job – nothing more, nothing less.

The question we must ask is this: We work so hard to brand ourselves to the outside world but how often do we brand ourselves to our own people? What do they genuinely feel about us and can we be honest with ourselves to hear it? You can’t fake enthusiasm for your own workplace. It’s readily apparent and genuine or you’ll see forced smiles and sarcasm if not outright complaints.

Where does the enthusiasm come from? For one thing, a company that treats its people as investments rather than role fillers. Managers who are passionate about understanding what makes their people tick personally, not just professionally. What do they like to do in their spare time? How can you reward them with more of that thing they love? It’s time to look beyond the annual reviews and raises but instead think about your people’s lives on a regular basis.

This isn’t just touchy feely stuff. In fact, here’s how it can benefit your brand.

Just picture how that enthusiasm can positively affect customer retention and loyalty. Let’s say your customer calls up with a technical question and he’s not happy. Your patient employee takes the time to carefully walk the customer through the question like anyone else, but in the course of helping that person, also learns the person is a New York Jets fan. The person is sent a handwritten thank you card for calling with a Jets hat, wishing his team best of luck on the upcoming season.

Who’s going to forget that? Who’s not going to tell someone else about that? I think you get where I’m going with this. An investment in training that employee might just have led to a better customer service experience and in the larger picture, a tremendous feeling about the brand. Or perhaps they felt such an investment and support from the company for their own personal/professional goals that such a positive desired result came naturally – they’re not just doing their job. They’ve bought into a mantra. A mission. A purpose.

Think about your top 5 competitors. Are their technological differences between you all that different? I’ll wager the answer is no. You’ll invest in technology and so will they.

The true difference is your workforce. Your people with their various talents and skills are the differentiators. They are the people on the front lines who often have to deal with customers face-to-face. And even if they don’t, shouldn’t we treat them as the walking, talking representations of the overall brand they are anyway? After all, they do leave the office and associate with others, you know.

“Yes, but what happens when they leave the company? Won’t our differentiator leave with them?” I expect to hear this a bit. It’s natural for people to come and go. The question is how much and how often they’re leaving. Obviously if half the company walks out the door within a year, you need to take a hard look at your own management practices and communication style.

When it’s hard for them to move on to a new opportunity because the culture is so terrific and tears are shed on all sides, something that is special is happening – really. Because it’s a family-like atmosphere at that point.

Is it possible that we could do more with less by looking inward to the brand in front of our faces that we haven’t developed? And in doing so, could we find our outside sales and customer loyalty rising as a result of our internal investment?

One thing’s for certain. It’s a heck of a great place to start.

 

What types of initiatives is your company using to build the internal brand? Is it helping result in a better customer service experience, happier employees, etc.? Share if you’re comfortable doing so.

Cubs, Sox Looking Up at Teams in Social Media Standings Too

The San Francisco Giants are the world champions of social media. Oh, and I suppose they deserve that World Series trophy too.

Let me explain. I began to write this as a Cubs vs. Sox comparison of social media usage – and I do speak to this. But I also wanted to show the whole picture of how both the North Siders and South Siders compare against other teams in baseball. Plus, I didn’t want Sox fans to think I was trying to intentionally be biased against their team as I fully disclose my passion for Cubdom.

There may be Cubs Nation, Yankees Nation and Red Sox Nation, but in my view, the Giants are the best all-around baseball team in terms of being truly “social.”

And what’s crazy is that it primarily comes down to effort, not technology.

Some will say, “that figures because they’re in Silicon Valley and there’s a lot of tech people out there.” No, no, no. You and I both know that we’re talking about interaction, not building microchips. It involves maintenance and consistency but being a social media marketer doesn’t require hardcore engineering. So take that thought and smack it out of the stadium of your mind.

To arrive at this finding, I took a look at Sports Fan Graph from Coyle Media, Klout, Social Media Today and my own analysis of teams’ social media channels.

Now, let’s discuss some of those categories in greater detail:

Twitter Interactivity

I don’t judge too much by number of followers because obviously that favors the big cities vs. the smaller ones. Plus, I don’t believe that should be the most heavily weighted piece of criteria when measuring social media influence anyway. Instead, I looked at whether teams were actually conversing with followers or they were just using Twitter as an outlet for broadcasting.

Using this measurement, the Giants top off around 33 follower responses in a 24-hour span alone. That may or may not sound like a lot, until you consider what both of our teams did combined.

Cubs: Within a 72-hour span @Cubs acknowledged and responded to zero followers. The front office Tweeter at @CubsInsider was a little better – one follower in 72 hours. All the rest of their tweets were broadcasts.

White Sox: In the same 72-hour timeframe, @whitesox had the same result – zero responses to any followers.

 

Frequency of Tweets

Even with sharing play-by-play, scores and interviews, you can only tweet so much when it’s one-sided. The Giants are masters of pumping out tweets that are frequent and varied. As noted, they know how to give and receive feedback. At this point, they tally nearly 15,000 tweets.

By comparison, the Cubs and White Sox combined total a little less than half that many tweets. That’s a little embarrassing when you consider these teams have a fan base that’s much larger than, say, the Blue Jays or Rangers – just a couple of the teams out-Tweeting the Cubs and Sox.

 

Facebook Pages           

It’s almost a given that size of city will play an influence on size of Facebook Page, so it’s not terribly surprising that the Yankees, Red Sox and Cubs have the largest amount of Fans on their Facebook Pages. Yet this is what makes the Giants’ showing of the 4th overall Facebook Page all the more respectable, considering San Francisco is in a market behind New York, L.A., Chicago, Houston, Philly and several others.

The White Sox aren’t terrible overall in terms of Facebook Page volume (11th), but they certainly shouldn’t be losing out to anyone within their division – and Detroit’s Facebook Page is nudging it out by 20,000 Fans.


Check-Ins

More check-ins occur at AT&T Park, home of the Giants, than any other baseball stadium, according to Social Media Today. As of right now, their fans have checked in on Foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook Places 284,854 times.

The Dodgers are second (233,008) and the Cubs are third (233,008). Not terribly surprising considering the beauty of the Friendly Confines but this is nonetheless a bright spot for the Cubs as they’ve nudged past those checking in at Yankee Stadium.

I don’t mean to pick on the White Sox here, but the number of check-ins at US Cellular Field are dead last in baseball (24,285). That’s pathetic. And you can’t put that all on the fans either. If they had enough incentive to check-in through certain promotions, they’d do it. So let’s see the front office do something in this area so the Sox can at least pass up the check-ins by Houston fans at Minute Maid Park, which deserves to relegated to last for its stupid hill in center field.


Conclusion

Some teams can rest on their laurels and get a sizeable fan base, but you’ve got to admire when a team becomes Avis-like and tries harder because it knows it has to. The Giants are in a smaller city and even have to compete with a team across the Bay to a degree. Yet there’s nothing preventing many other teams from doing the things the Giants are doing – they’re just hustling a lot more when it comes to posting, tweeting and interacting. Who knows? Maybe that’s a mandate from the front office there – hustle on the field and off of it.

As far as the Cubs and White Sox, there’s room for improvement overall. From a social media perspective with all factors considered, both teams are looking up at the Giants, Yankees, Red Sox and Phillies. And when it comes to Twitter, they’re behind the Phillies, Yankees, Giants, Braves, Dodgers and Blue Jays. If you believe in Klout scores, add the Mets and Rangers above them.

I can understand being behind the Yankees. But the Braves, Rangers and Blue Jays?

Wait until next year, I guess.

How about your thoughts on how your team can be a little more social? To spur ideas, check out this article in Fast Company that talks about the “6 Things Sports Teams Can Do With Social Media To Engage Fans.”