relationship marketing Archives - Page 2 of 3 by Mark Murnahan

Anybody Will Sell You Stuff: Some Will Ask “What About You?”

Listening Builds Friendships ... and Companies! — Listening Builds Friendships
... and Companies!

Let’s consider a trait that we can each benefit from, and most of us should work harder to achieve. I will tell it in personal terms, and then explain how it applies to marketing a business.

I am sure you must know somebody who makes you feel comfortable to talk with about anything you want to talk about. When I find myself encountering this rare-as-a-unicorn person who just wants to know about me, and the things I want, it almost feels awkward at first, but in a uniquely good way.

I am talking about those people who listen attentively and do more than just nod their head and yawn as you ramble, while waiting to assert their agenda. I mean the kind who draw you in and make you feel totally comfortable to want what you want, think what you think, and be who you are. You tell them things, because they actually show their interest in you.

When you encounter this type of person, it is easy to feel that their story has got to be a great one. Their expressed interest in you has made them more interesting, and it makes you want to know them better, and to hear their side. Suddenly, there is a desire to switch things around and make the conversation more about them, what they want, what they think, and how you can be a better friend to them.

I hope that you have had the privilege to know somebody like I have described here. If so, you are probably nodding and smiling as you think of the way it makes you feel about them. It may even make you want to ring them on the phone to catch up on things since you last spoke.

Applying Listening to Marketing a Brand

Think about how you feel in a scenario where a person really cares what you have to say. I don’t mean the kind who fake it, but rather the kind where you can sense a sincere interest in you. Don’t you want to be more like them?

Have you ever encountered this feeling that you are talking too much and listening too little? All of the sudden you feel a little bit like a conversation hog, but it is so hard to change. When you want more business, you have to talk more, and it becomes hard to remember those listening skills.

This “listening person” we all enjoy is often there, in the back of our mind, but they are very hard to emulate. What I described is a common dynamic of any relationship, but the special ones we think so kindly about are simply better at it than we are.

In business, we each have our agenda, and our sets of rules for what we think is the best outcome for our own interests. We plan things in ways that we will get what we want out of the relationship, and deviating from that plan is a threat. It is simply against the rules.

In marketing, it is very popular to be the one doing all the talking, and nod and yawn while customers try to tell us what they want. I see extreme selfishness every day in marketing. I see it most profoundly online, because it is easy for companies to scream louder when they think that nobody is listening.

It is important to notice when our set of rules and a selfish mindset diminishes our potential. This is a common outcome when we forget to listen and be that person who becomes more interesting simply by being genuinely interested.

Consider for just a moment the instances when it may be best to approach business as a bit more of an interested introvert, and less of an interesting extrovert. It may create a chance to reset your objectives and become a better “friend” to your customers. The outcome will often be that you will become more interesting, and others will think kindly and smile when they think of your business. The good news is that this truly is scalable to any size of brand!

Are you taking enough time to ask people “What about you?” I guess we could call compassion and listening matters of “growing up” or “wisdom”, but I believe that we can each do more to cultivate our listening and caring skills.

How can you better address the importance of listening to what people want? Will you do the necessary research? Will you take that extra time to slow down and get to know what people want and expect of you?

What do you have to say about this? I welcome your comments, and I want to know “What about you?”

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Influence Marketing: Reach Your Market Through Their Influencers

I woke up to another Monday today. Monday is the day I ask myself the question again, “Are you reaching the right people?” It goes a bit deeper when I start asking “Are you reaching them with the right message?” If I can answer both of these with the affirmative, the next step is to repeat it and try to be sure the message continues to reach the right people, with the right message, and at the right time. Getting the right time means doing it again and again until their time is right. At the top of my list is reaching the right people.

How To Reach the Right People … The Influencers!

I think for a lot of people trying to reach a market, the question of how to reach the right people totally confounds them. It is actually a bit tricky and it takes some serious thought. It gets easier with training, experience, and research, but it is always a challenging part of marketing. Good marketing often means reaching the buyer themselves, but the best marketing often means reaching the people who influence the buyer. It is called influence marketing. Knowing who is an influencer and who is a buyer is an important step to knowing the right message to deliver. Getting it wrong means wasting a lot of time and money.

Car companies learned about this a long time ago. They realized that, statistically, men will be more appreciative of the 7.0L V8 engine and the 505 horsepower, while ladies will care more about the handy button to automatically move the power seat back to where she left it (before her gearhead husband got in and moved it). They segment their market and deliver a different message to reach the right person with the right message. By doing this, they are selling features to each party, but they also know that if I want that 7.0L V8 engine, I will use that silly seat button they told me about to influence my wife. Now that is how to get a car sold! Reaching the right person very often means knowing more than just them, but also who influences them, and how.

If I was selling wedding dresses, I would know that the bride is not always the only participant. There is another important point of influence. I need to reach her father with the message that his little darling will feel like the princess she wanted to be when she was five years old and that this is that moment she had planned for all those years. I need to reach the bridesmaids who will tell the bride how gorgeous that dress makes her look. I need to reach the influencers or the whole thing could be shot down and I have just another expensive dress on the rack.

For me, I consider who reads my work. Exactly who is attracted to a blog about marketing? Probably people who have a product or service to offer, right? The fact is that it is mostly people who would never in a million years consider paying me to help them build their market. This is just fine for me, because it helps me focus on being useful. If I am useful, people will come back. If I am even more useful, they will pass it along to others in their circle of influence. Because I know that most of my readers are not directly in the market to buy my services, the focus is a lot more on being helpful. Reaching the right people means reaching the influencers, and not just the buyers directly. Seriously, most CEOs and VPs are not looking for me. My job is to be sure they find me, but when the message is delivered by somebody influential to them, it is better than if I deliver it right to them. That is crazy back-door thinking, right? Not really. Just imagine the marketing assistant who says “I like this guy, boss. We should talk to him.” That influence will always go a lot further than just reaching the boss and explaining how great my offering is. The right message is that I am not the competition, but rather here to be useful. The right timing means that readers will subscribe to my blog and find me again when their timing is right.

If you want to reach the right people, you often must look far beyond the obvious target. Think about how you can better reach your market influencers. It is Monday, and it is a great way to start your week.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

How Good SEO Becomes Great SEO: Feed the Gorillas!

I recently returned home after an all-day meeting with a company in need of my SEO and social media marketing services. I wrote about them in my recent article titled “99 Percent of Marketing Fails, But Eleanor Can Fly!“. The company asked me to come to Chicago and meet with them at length about their needs, and get to know them. They don’t just want a consultant, they want me to share in their vision and help them to achieve some really big goals. They want my commitment to their long-term success.

We had a great time, and I learned a lot about things which make the company really great. The culture of the company is to do things with purpose. They do meaningful things and they do them for the right reasons. Their purpose is not all about the money, but the money is all because of the purpose. I suppose it is easier for them to come by their purpose, because they are a family-owned company in their fourth generation. The culture was passed down, and there is a strong sense of responsibility that comes along with that. I am still optimistic that a greater purpose can be developed in newer companies, too. They must first understand that greater rewards come from a bigger vision than themselves, and not just a clever business plan.

Tangent Thinking Creates Great SEO and Social Media

While I was meeting with these fine folks, we often spoke in tangents. We let our minds wander with our ideas. Thinking and sharing your tangent is often the best way to discover your greatest creativity. I told the guys that if I was there in the office each day, much of my best work would not be sitting at a desk and doing geeky stuff like reprogramming their websites, but rather pacing the sidewalk smoking cigarettes, and chugging coffee. I forgot to add the telephone. I need cigarettes, coffee, and a telephone so I can call for more inspiration and ideas from that perfect person in my giant network of creative and resourceful friends who can help me think through my latest flash of genius.

I explained that good SEO takes a lot of hard work, data analysis, and understanding of technologies, but that great SEO requires something a whole lot different. It requires creativity, passion, and doing something truly exceptional and showing people what makes your company amazing. Yes, SEO is a whole lot more than just picking some keywords and putting them on a perfectly crafted website. Really great SEO (search engine optimizers) know that asking for a link from other webmasters is a huge waste of time. They know that if you do something really out of the box that people love, more people will link to you because they are compelled to share the value you provided them. Yes, there I said it. I just gave you the single best tip in my SEO bag of goodies.

When the SEO Light Bulb Comes On

While I was on a tour of the company’s facility with the VP of Marketing, his right-hand man, a brilliant note-taking scribe who goes by the title of “Director of Innovation” came to re-join us on the tour. The three of us stood in the “bird cage” high atop a huge facility where employees were working hard to do their jobs. As we talked about them, it really began to feel like they were not just there to get the job done, but that the culture of this company allowed them to all be a part of a bigger picture. They worked side-by-side with family members, and I don’t just mean the strong family which is the company. They worked with people they had known since birth … you know, actual family members. Many of them had been there for a very long time. Sure, jobs are harder to find these days, but I don’t think these people came to work each day just because this was the only job out there for them. They understood the vision, and if any of them question their corporation’s intentions, they shouldn’t. I don’t. Hearing it from a guy with the founder’s same name, I can say that the higher-ups really have a whole lot of heart wrapped up in that staff. They really do care about the employees, and they feel a huge sense of responsibility to the thousands of people it can affect if they make bad decisions. It gave me goosebumps more than once.

While we stood there talking about these hard workers and sharing our visions for the company, the Director of Innovation had a moment which really came to seem like a light bulb turning on. He knew that what I do is more than just things he had read about SEO and Internet marketing, but had not put his finger on it just yet. In this light bulb moment, he really started seeing how the initial perceptions of SEO as a technical trade went a lot deeper. He noticed that it also has a lot greater than expected roots in people, talent, creativity, networking, and so many other branches of a marketing tree. It was in this conversation when he realized that there really is a lot more to the job description of search engine optimizer than he thought. It is not just about getting a bunch of website traffic. It also has a lot to do with being able to express the value of something, and doing it in a way that people can relate to. It has to do with building a brand and sharing that great culture of the company with other people who will appreciate it and benefit from it. It has to do with building consumer confidence, which often takes a lot more than just being the first search result when people search for what you offer.

Social Media Seeds SEO, But Here is How!

In our discussions, I mentioned that social media is like seeds of SEO. Actually, SEO is social media, and I will explain that briefly. If you consider that Google’s most important SEO ranking factor is quality links pointing to your website, you can see that it is all about the people’s opinion. People who have confidence in your brand, and see value in your message, will link to your work. Google is just a bigger tree in the social media forest. It reflects what the people like, and what the people want. It is largely based on the same principle of great things being popular.

Google is just a bigger tree in the social media forest. It reflects what the people like, and what the people want. It is largely based on the same principle of great things being popular.

There is a lot more to it, but it is the whole forest that I want you to see. Sure, you can swap a bunch of links and ask people to link to your website. If you think that works so great, consider how long it would take to get thousands of incoming links to your site by asking for them. Then consider how much more effective it would be for your business to do great things and provide great value, then present it in a way that people will love to share. Getting this wrong is why I say that most SEO fail at link building.

How Does a Good Business Become Great?

A wise man who knew about making a good business great described it as feeding the gorillas. You must give them what they want, and they want bananas. Give them bananas and they will be happy gorillas who will be loyal to you. I think there was a lot more wisdom in this than just the picture you have in your head right now of a silly man throwing bananas to a gorilla (you saw that guy in your mind, too … I know you did). It means giving people what they want in life and realizing that is the most effective path to getting what you want. This holds true, whether it is a link to your website, a purchase from a customer, love of another person, or becoming a massively successful brand. Feeding bananas to gorillas is what made the company I met with yesterday a great one. They have been giving people what they want for a long time, and the success is evident.

I really enjoyed my trip to Chicago and the day I spent getting to know these guys. I hope they see just how much similarity we share in our methods and motivations. I suspect as they read through the copies of my book, “Living in the Storm” that I left with them, they will see that I strongly believe in feeding the gorillas, too.

Mark’s Side-Note
This may seem a bit outside of the topic, but it does relate. I want to add that while I visited with my wife on my way back home, she sensed an emotional attraction that I have to this company. She said that from all I told her, I could not have dreamed up a more suitable and exciting opportunity to do the things I love than what this company has in mind for me. I was not looking for this, and I have been a CEO for two decades. The company found me, and has expressed an interest in making me an employee of their corporation. This is certainly not something I would normally even consider. At the same time, it really proves that if you do great things, with great purpose, and you present it in a way that people love, nearly any goal can become reality.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Everybody Hates Spam … But What If?

You hate spam, I hate spam … we all hate spam. Right?

I spend a lot of time reading, researching, and finding out about stuff. I like knowing things. While I am reading, learning, and soaking in the glory of this Information Superhighway we have all built together, I encounter a lot of spam. Don’t we all?

We all want it to feel like a global community and we all want to know more about people, things, places and more. We find out how different we are, and we find out how similar we are. We find out what others like, and we find out things they don’t like. Sometimes we mix it up and forget that while we are so vigilant about not hearing the stuff we don’t want to hear (spam), we may miss a few things we do want to hear.

People love to talk about themselves. People with kids love to talk about their kids. People who love food love to talk about the great cuisine they just enjoyed. People with something to sell love to talk about their goods.

We each have a lot to say, and when we can connect it all with a worldwide crowd, it validates us. It makes us feel less alone. It makes us HUMAN!

I have always been careful to discourage a bunch of spam on my blog comments. I want real comments that people will find useful and will build a conversation. At the same time, I have to question what I may be missing.

I wrote a post once upon a time asking for people to share their Twitter usernames. It was titled “Twitter Username Selection: What’s in a Name?” It turned out that even with over 160 comments, it was not entirely a spamfest, but also allowed people to share who they are. It allowed people to talk about themselves. It also allowed and encouraged people to connect.

That is what I am offering now, but in a different way. I want to ask each of you … yes, YOU, to share a little about yourself. What do you like? What are you all about? What do you do for a living? Do you have something to sell? Share it with people here, because you never know whom you may connect with.

Hey, what can be the worst outcome? We have to sort through a little bit of junk to find the prize? They do that at diamond mines, too.

This is my call for spam. Place your spam here. When I say spam, in this case I mean to not be afraid to talk about yourself … I don’t mean to offer your free diplomas or cheap Rolex watches. I mean, connect, share, and don’t be afraid to drop a link or sell us some stuff. As long as it is in good taste, let it fly. This is a mixer, so by all means, MIX!

NOTE: If you are wondering how or if I will moderate this … Yes, I will probably have to shut the comments off at some point or begin some manual moderation. Big deal, I can handle it. As long as it sounds genuine and is not illegal, go ahead and share it with the rest of us!

By the way … aren’t you curious what people will say when they are actually requested to talk about themselves? Be sure to subscribe to the comments!

UPDATE: Take a look at the things we may miss when we become too cynical. There are some really talented and amazing people in this world, and right here in the blog comments! Let us all be sure that we each stop and smell the flowers.

Three Kids Prove Social Networking Works

Social networking has been analyzed, scrutinized, bastardized, and commercialized, but my family is proof that it works, and that it has worked for over a decade. If you will give me a moment, I will tell you why I am blogging about this today, and give inspirational credit to people I met and have built deep relationships with that have lasted for over a decade and growing, and those whom I only recently met. I will start with today, and I will go back to the really good stuff when I met Peggy.

A little while ago, I sent a tweet on Twitter (for the confused, see: “Twitter Usage Study: Pass The Tweet #PTT“) and it read as follows:

“Social Networking Fact: I met my wife online in 2000 and we await the birth of our 3rd child in April. It works, I tell ya!”.

I sent this tweet after an engaging blog conversation asking “When will social media be ‘ready’?”. I am never the guy to leave a quick one-liner on a blog because I am just not a link-spammy blogger. I would rather say nothing at all than to say “Great article, it was really helpful.” As it should be, my comment was thoughtful, and it was engaged by the author, Caleb Gardner. Here is how it went:

Mark Aaron Murnahan:

When somebody questions the ROI of social media, they have already missed the point. It is worse than the mentality of trying to measure the ROI on taking a client to a ball game or going to dinner. Building relationships should not be measured by dollars and cents. I have just been communicating with a friend whom I met and have built a strong friendship since 1998. I have never asked her for business or for referrals, but you can bet that if she knows somebody who needs my services, I will get the call. Further, I did a lot of dating online years before it was common and finally met my wife online in 2000. We are now expecting our third child in April 2009. Social networking has been ready for years, but people being ready for it is another story. Social networking used to happen in ballrooms and the corner restaurant. The primary thing that changed was the venue.

calebgardner:

@Mark

I love the personal story about your wife. Way to make an emotional (literally) appeal for social networking.

It’s an interesting thought that social networking has been around for years. You’re right – it literally has in that we’ve always built relationships with those around us. I think what is happening is that the Web is making us more cognizant of the relationships we build, because we’re able to build them with people that we never would have been in contact with before.

Hmm… have to give that some more thought. Sounds like an interesting post on its own…

Mark Aaron Murnahan:

@caleb

Since my comment, I was on the phone with a good friend I know from my “other job” racing cars. His very financially successful company has a churn issue because of a hugely competitive market with tiny margins. I used myself as an example with him. I explained that he would not hear my message as clearly if he did not know me, my wife, my children, and my integrity. He has been in my garage working on racecars with me at 3:00am before a big event, and we drive around corners at 100+++MPH together, for the sake of Pete. He knows that I have a lot more at stake than a sales pitch. We have a relationship. I have tried to reach his executive staff to understand that without relationships, all we have is a sales pitch, and that people do not buy the pricetag but rather what is attached. He gets the message, and he is really excited to work together, as am I, but he is getting a lot of pushback on implementation from his fellow execs. They have a corporate stuffiness that does not even match their written message and their goals. The bottom line is that if we miss the relationships, we work much harder and achieve less. You built on our relationship by engaging me with your reply. This is how stuff really works. My next blog article about it is forthcoming.

How I Met My Wife: Re-tweeted

Remember that tweet I sent? It was re-tweeted and replied to, which is always an honor, because it means I said something that people actually heard and thought enough about to tell others, and to ask a question. A question was posed by @askorkin as follows:

“really! you met your wife online, i am intrigued how? if you don’t mind my asking :)”

—

I replied:“Since you asked how I met my wife online, I am inspired to blog about it. It is my best proof that social networking really works.”

—

My Social Networking in 1998

In 1998, I had a friend and business partner who did not really understand the reach of the Internet. He was a physician and I was a marketing guy. We were working on a project targeted toward pharmaceutical companies that were spending tons of money to bring doctors to luxury resorts in Miami, Palm Springs, Orlando, Phoenix, and elsewhere, to learn about their new drug. At the time, thanks to government subsidized travel and tourism in Central Europe, we found that it was actually less costly to bring American participants to a conference in Budapest, Hungary than to Miami. This became the target of our new conferencing company.

Jeff posed a lot of questions as to how the Internet worked into our business model. He did not really “get it”. I explained that I had developed a network of friends in the region, and globally. Even back then, my European social network of friends included Bianca, who was an au pair from Austria working in USA, with whom I have communicated even in the last 24 hours (see my Facebook).

We made connections with hotel managers, tourist attractions, and one of our favorites, Varsaci Karoly (“Karchi”). Karchi worked for the E.C. as a Euro Qualifier, and we were fast friends. We got to know him online, but he soon showed us many incredible times in Budapest. We had a lot of fun at the courtesy of the Hungarian government. After all, it was ideal for them to attract American dollars back then.

It was really sinking in for Jeff, by this point, that this Internet thing could be useful. However, he still questioned it as a marketing tool. It is funny how most people think of it as a marketing tool first, and a networking tool second. We (he) flipped that around. Jeff knew that I was pretty “Internet savvy”, but I needed to give him a clear example. This gets to how I met my wife.

Social Networking Study: “Mark the Single Guy”

By 1999, I was single, 26 years old, and retired. My marketing business had been pretty good to me, but my personal life was lackluster from years of focusing on my work. Jeff’s challenge to use the Internet to show localized results led me to kill two birds with one stone. I wanted a woman to hold, and he wanted to understand the Internet. Again, it is funny how he thought localization was the challenge back then, but now globalization is the challenge.

I set out to prove that there were enough people right there in our town of Topeka, Kansas, USA to show the Internet market reach. Of course, back then, his concern was that the audience may be too slim. Wow, I showed him. I used a XOOM.com account (back then xoom.com was a free host) to create a significantly detailed biography of “Mark the Single Guy”, and I used a “.cjb.net” account to shorten the URL. I included everything I liked, didn’t like, and I even had a special section about my baggage. The “Mark’s Baggage” section was complete with an affiliate link to ebags.com. I promoted my heart everywhere I could, and I used the equivalent of today’s “re-tweeting” by asking my online social network to pass along the bio and help me find the woman who would become the love of my life.

It was not too long before I was receiving 300-400 email messages per day from ladies within a 50 mile radius who wanted to meet me. I met a lot of ladies, and I had a lot of fun … yes, a lot! I met a few neurotic ladies like Sara, Nancy, and DeeAnne, and I broke a few hearts. I am still sorry for making one of the Stacys cry. She was a sweet girl, and I really liked her family. Of course, Sara, Nancy, and DeeAnne were the ones I really wanted, but thanks to them, I was single when I met my darling wife, Peggy.

After the neurotic gals had nearly broken my will, I was pretty careful when it came to being close to Peggy. I think I was in love with her before I ever touched her hand or smelled her hair. Peggy was clearly very special, and I would do my best to keep from hurting her with my baggage (and WOW, I had baggage). Peggy does not like to admit this, but she admitted back then to crying as she read the deepest parts of me, the man she really wanted but was afraid of.

Social Networking: Shedding My Skin for Peggy

Sharing the real me was like pulling a scab off my entire body and letting air hit my sensitive inside. In my biography, I had shed my skin and stood emotionally naked for the world to see and inspect. It is lucky for both of us that I was real. I showed my sweat, my tears, my fears, my body odor, and the things that made me a real person.

Is This Fact or Fiction?

Some will question if this is all real, just as Peggy did back then. The accounts you have read here are only a small part of the full story, but it is all real, and it is all me. Perhaps as you get to know me, I will tell you the really deep and hard stuff that I once shared more freely online.

It cannot be all wrong to share who you are. After all, that is how I met the love of my life and the mother of my six year old son, my three year old daughter, and the baby she carries today whom I will announce in April 2009.

If you would like to know me better, just tell me so, and we will make that happen. I know the value of social networking, and I treasure the many relationships I have built.