Category Archives: Branding

Bathroom humor hits the spot for a utilitarian B2B brand

Posted on December 30, 2014 | Leave a comment

How do you boost a utilitarian brand like SurveyMonkey? Most marketers would be thinking about “what it is and what it does.” Functional, pedestrian, and boring. Eli Schwartz thinks bigger with this clever release about — well, about what cell phone users do in the bathroom.

surveymonkey-bathroom-1

This is genius marketing because it:

  • Highlights a skillful use of a survey, using SurveyMonkey’s Audience tool.
  • Is an attention grabber with high viral potential.
  • It’s relatable and tells a story (one more than a few readers will relate to).
  • Is one of very few quality uses of an infographic.
  • Made me LOL. And made me think about SurveyMonkey. And made me pass the word!

The execution is great, too, with bright, humorous graphics.

surveymonkey-bathroom-2

(Disclaimer: I know Eli and spotted this because I follow him on LinkedIn.)

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Posted in Branding, Content marketing, Marketing

Tell me a story

Posted on December 29, 2014 | 2 comments

I was afraid. Standing at a lectern in downtown Manhattan before a room full of experts, I was easily the youngest person there. I was sure they could see me sweating. I prayed for the end before I said my first word. But then, I closed my eyes, took a breath, and began to talk about the future, a day in the automated office, when computers were connected. And when I was done, people came up to ask questions about our office automation architecture. The 20-something budding marketer from HP with the soaking wet collar had connected.

tell a storyCredit: Wikipedia

Is there anything more viscerally connecting than a story? It’s how humans have expressed themselves, convinced, controlled, enrolled, sold, and created value for millenia.

And yet, in marketing materials, we keep seeing, “The GM-X is an innovative solution for enterprise-ready network service stacks that ensures rapid deployment, cost savings, and the infinite connectivity of a cloud-based architecture.”

In the New York Times, “Storytelling Your Way to a Better Job or a Stronger Start-Up” reminds us that stories persuade. They also generate a happy hormone, oxytocin, in the brain. Researchers diagrammed Super Bowl commercials based on storytelling elements and successfully predicted their outcome. The key elements? It’s what we learned in high school:

It probably sounds familiar from middle-school English class: Act 1, scene setting; Act 2, rising action; Act 3, the turning point; Act 4, the falling action; and Act 5, the denouement or release. Variations of this include fewer or more stages, but they all follow the same pattern.

In business writing, especially in email and on the web, we don’t have much time to get the reader’s attention. But then, neither does a Super Bowl commercial. The Times article cites Hemingway’s six-word story: ““For sale: Baby shoes, never worn.” So we really have no excuses.

How do we tell a story? We have to remember the basics, then practice the ancient art.

Most important, I think is to tell the story, rather than telling about the story. We tend to judge, categorize, summarize but a judgment ends the narrative and kills the tension.

We also shy away from feelings, when feelings are the best way to connect, establish trust, and build empathy.

It doesn’t come naturally, at least for me. I find I have to remind myself to connect. The way that young, sweaty kid from HP did in New York.

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Posted in Branding, Content marketing, Marketing

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The benefit of benefits

Posted on December 11, 2014 | Leave a comment

features and benefits Copyright 2014 Moe Rubenzahl

Features and benefits: People tend to talk about that as if it’s easy. It’s not. But it’s super-important. When you really reach the benefits, you’re really reaching the customer and distinguishing yourself from all the poor marketing out there. 

Here are some tips to find the benefits, and a link to a really great — and free — book.

But the very first thing I want you to know is:

Writing benefits is hard!

Even with years of practice, I have to ask myself if what I just wrote is truly a customer benefit. Often, it’s a feature masquerading as a benefit.

A feature is what it does and how well it does it. A benefit is why the feature matters — how it solves the customer’s problem or delights the customer. Benefits are “what’s in it for me?”

quarter-inch-hole

The reason it’s hard is that we think we are logical and sensible, that we want features. But we don’t — features tell but invariably, benefits sell.

benefits-featuresCopyright 2014 Moe Rubenzahl

Features and benefits: Here's what our product can do; here's what YOU can do with our product.

How to find the benefits

A great way to find the benefit is to ask:

So what?

When you’re looking at a feature or benefit, ask, from the user’s perspective, “So what?” Why does the customer care? Then when you answer the “so what” question, ask it again. Continue until there is no answer. 

Example:

You have a portable medical gadget and the product manager tells you it uses less power than any other. Here’s the dialog:

Feature: Lower power

So what?

Uses less battery

So what?

You have to charge less often

So what?

Goes all day without recharging!

Another example

This time, you have a portable exercise monitor. Again, the product manager tells you it uses less power than any other. But the dialog goes differently:

Lower power

So what?

Uses less battery

So what?

Batteries are smaller

So what?

Lighter weight

So what?

Our exercise monitor fits in your shirt pocket — you will forget it’s there!

Same feature, different context means different benefits

Notice how the same feature might be a completely different benefit. In all cases, benefits are what connect with customers. 

Learn more

Writing with benefits is not easy and for most of us, not automatic. It’s a discipline. Want to master it? Here’s a quick read:

http://www.enchantingmarketing.com/features-and-benefits/

and download the free book, “Write Benefits to Seduce Buyers” offered there.

henneke-write-benefits-book

It’s an easy read, just a dozen pages, and it will make you a better marketing writer. Your writing reach customers better and need less editing. That will make you and your team more productive. (See what I did there?)

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Nobody Cares About You

Posted on November 19, 2014 | Leave a comment

“The hard truth is that nobody is interested in you, your company, or your products. Because people are only interested in themselves.”

— Henneke Duistermaat

henneke-customers-want-benefits

When talking or writing about products and services, one of the hardest challenges is to focus on benefits rather than features, on solving the customer’s problems. It seems to be especially difficult for technical people. But it is critically important because it is how we matter to customers and prospects.

henneke-write-benefits-book

I found an excellent, free article on this topic — and you can read it in about 10 minutes. It talks about customer focus and a great way to get from features to benefits every time, using the “so what” method.

Even if you already understand features and benefits, we all need to remind ourselves, over and over. Because every day, we’re focused on us: our company, what we do, what we sell. We tend to describe products and services, talk about features, tell everyone how great it all is. Customers don’t care about all that! They don’t care about us, they care about themselves. They want to know that we can solve their problems.

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Posted in Branding, Marketing

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Biggest Content Marketing Issue: You’re Not Doing It!

Posted on October 21, 2014 | 1 comment

tractor-471836_640

You know content marketing is hot. You’ve known it forever.

Even before it was everywhere, before it was in the Wall Street Journal, before it even had a name, you already knew content marketing was a good idea. And you probably already know it will produce results for you. You’re probably doing some — you have some web articles here, a Twitter post there, some PDFs tucked in the corner. But you have no strategy, no procedures, no one with performance goals for producing content, no metrics. Is that you?

b2b-content-Documented-StrategyIt’s most of us. Despite being convinced it works, less than half of marketers have a documented strategy1. 93 percent of marketers use content marketing, but just 42 percent of B2B marketers consider themselves effective at it2. Another source claims 77% Of B2C marketers use content marketing, but 21% fail to track its ROI3.

93-pct-B2B-use-CMIt’s not because a proper content marketing program is hard work — it is, but difficulty doesn’t stop us, does it? I think that most enterprises aren’t there yet because content marketing requires the whole enterprise. You can’t do it on your own by convincing the CEO to write a check, by bringing in a consultant, or by buying something from Oracle.

Why don’t we just do it?

You need the whole company. You need sales and marketing to develop messages, personas, taglines and elevator pitches, unique value propositions, and buyers’ journeys. You need material, which means stealing time from some of the best technical people in the company. You need high-level editing, which probably means hiring. You need databases and infrastructure from the web team and from IT. You need the search marketing team and analytics support.

So, how do you get started?

Strategy first: If you can afford the time and think you can sell it, start with a strategy. Then sell it and execute. As you begin, come up with the measures that will prove the program, and measure a baseline. That may make it easier to resell the strategy when resources are pulled back (and since you’re tapping resources in many departments, pull-back is inevitable).

Tactics first: Strategy-first is a wonderful plan but many organizations lack the discipline. So pick up the ball and run! Begin with what you have and can do now. But as with the strategy-first plan, establish metrics first and take a baseline. Eventually, someone will notice what you are doing and if you can’t show results, you’re content marketing program will be instant toast.

See: Content marketing: Getting started.

The good news is that you will find allies everywhere because we all know that in the 21st century, content serves customers and supports business goals. So it’s a question of finding a way to do something we all agree is a good idea.

———

144 percent of B2B marketers and 39 percent of B2C have a documented strategy.

2http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2013/10/2014-b2b-content-marketing-research/

3http://marketingland.com/survey-77-b2c-marketers-use-content-marketing-21-tracking-roi-104099

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Posted in Branding, Business strategy, Content marketing, Marketing, Persona, Search marketing

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Any Business Can Use Amazon’s Four Pillars of Success

Posted on April 7, 2014 | Leave a comment

In Amazon’s Performance Secrets, Bryan Eisenberg posts Amazon’s four pillars of success. He says, “What we most admire…is that it is duplicable by just about every other business.”

4-Amazon-pillars-infographic

Bryan Eisenberg’s notes on Amazon’s Four Pillars of Success

Not complicated:

  1. Customer Centricity
  2. Continuous Optimization
  3. Culture of Innovation
  4. Corporate Agility

(P.S. Don’t you love Bryan’s notes? Way better than an infographic.)

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Posted in Branding, Business strategy, Marketing

Bold Branding for B2B

Posted on March 27, 2014 | Leave a comment

A couple of years ago, I was part of a rebrand for Maxim Integrated, which we called “a 2.5 billion dollar company no one has ever heard of.” I was also at Hewlett-Packard when they ran their first television ads in the 1980s. It’s not easy. It takes a ton of money, or imagination and innovation. 

Check out AdAge’s article on Arrow Electronics’ campaign, developed by Olgivy.

Arrow Electronics is looking to ditch its self-proclaimed “biggest electronics company you never heard of” label. One year after its first national TV campaign brought down its corporate website, it’s using animated digital ads to help tell the story of what the company does.

In this phase of its rebranding effort, Arrow sales staff have been showing off the YouTube animated shorts on their iPads for the past few weeks — with the latest incarnation set to release this week. The 30-to 60-second pieces are part of Arrow’s “Five Year Olds on Five Years Out” campaign, which highlights the company’s various services as told through the mind of a five-year old.

Don’t believe it? Leonardo DaVinci wouldn’t lie:

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Posted in Branding, Marketing

Content and the Big Idea

Posted on March 11, 2014 | Leave a comment

Great essay on Rebecca Lieb’s blog today about focusing content on One Big Idea.

The best way to draw quality, valuable traffic and move it toward a profitable end is content marketing. It’s also expensive, so it needs to be done well. By “well,” I mean it has to be driven by a focused and cohesive strategy. How to do that? The “Big Idea.” Rebecca uses IBM and GE as examples. If companies as diverse as IBM and GE can focus their messages, surely we all can, too.

It’s not easy to do but once you have your Big Idea, it makes everything else much easier. But getting there is the hardest marketing challenge for any business because in order to focus on One Big Idea, a dozen ideas become sidebars. And they are your precious babies! But the truth is that when we try to make a dozen great points, we end up successfully making none. We need to trust that when all our ideas report to one, the harmony amplifies all our precious points.

My own business is a good example. What does “marketing consultant” mean? Not much, given all the marketing specialties. Over the course of the past year, I’ve focused more and more on the offering prospects and clients are most responding to: Straightforward Marketing, taking the mystery and opinion out of deciding what marketing tactics make sense for each client.

Does your business have a single identity and a singular focus?

 

 

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The Most Fundamental Marketing Mistake

Posted on November 19, 2013 | Leave a comment

booth-message

I was at a large tradeshow today (Dreamforce). I’ll bet I asked at 30 booths: “What do you do?” I wasn’t trying to be a smart aleck — in each case, I really wanted to know.

Booth after booth had the company name and some clever slogan that said not much, or a complex set of bullet points that only made sense to people who knew the product category well. Some used insider terms like “Document Management” that mean little to new prospects. Even when the booth said what they did, there often were no benefits and no hint at how the products solve customer problems.

After a while, I started asking a followup question, “Do you get that question a lot?” They would laugh and agree, not realizing they were staring a huge problem in the eye. After they told me what the company did, I asked some of them why the signage didn’t say that. (OK, now I was being a smart aleck.) Mostly blank stares. A few said something about “the marketing guys.”

You know your product or service. You live with it every day. But prospects may not even know the basic terms your industry uses. They certainly won’t know why they should be interested in you, unless you tell them. Look at all your materials through a novice’s eye and ask yourself if your most attractive prospect will find it enticing enough to ask a question more useful than, “What do you do?”.

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Posted in Branding, Marketing