Podcast Archives - Page 7 of 28 by Mark Murnahan

Paradigm Shifting, Initial Perceptions, and Marketing Communication

Paradigms change when we look at things from a different perspective. We often sincerely believe something from one perspective, but when we view it from another angle, our beliefs can change. It changes how we think, and how we react to something.

What some people call “magic” is based on this same principle. Once you understand an illusionist’s “trick”, your paradigm shifts, and you will likely never see that trick the same way again.

A paradigm shift can be explained with many examples, and I want to share a deeply meaningful example which occurred this weekend with my family.

I do not enjoy negative drama, or sharing bad news. I like my life to be very peaceful, and with a positive and inspiring outlook. In fact, some have even expressed a sense of awe by just how seasoned I am to overcoming adversity and seeing the bright side of tragedy. From my perspective, delusion is a skill, and not a deficit.

With that said, I am still going to share this with you as an example of looking at things differently. On the other end of this story, I will try to share a positive outlook, but for a moment, I will sink to the dregs of my own emotion, and perhaps yours.

My Weekend Family Getaway is Teaching a Lesson

Last weekend was one that will have a haunting affect on my family, perhaps for a long time. It has caused a paradigm-shift in multiple ways.

My wife, Peggy, made plans for our family to have a great weekend. She is a fantastic planner, and we were all very excited to attend the Kansas City Air Expo. She planned this day-trip getaway long ago, and our excitement peaked as we saw the first precision aerobatics act soar into the heavens.

Our oldest son, Simon (8), is very interested in aeronautics, and has become like a youth encyclopedia of aircraft. Incidentally, his interest has been shared by his little sister, Madeline (6), and brother, Jack Walden (2). Of course, being doting parents, our interests have also been piqued by our children’s passions, and our knowledge has grown accordingly.

The air show was impressive. We got to see a lot of interesting aircraft, inside and out. One of our favorites is the A-10 Thunderbolt II, also known as “Warthog”. We got to hold a simulated version of the depleted uranium munitions that the Warthog fires at the astonishing rate of 4,200 per minute. We didn’t even mind the passing rain showers, because we got to eat lunch under the wing of a Warthog. That was the perspective we chose.

We were having a nice time, just being together, and out of our normal workday routines. It was a very welcome break.

Duck or Rabbit? It depends on how you look at it.

What Shifted Our Paradigm?

At approximately 1:45 in the afternoon, things changed. While watching an astonishing flight by pilot Bryan Jensen, our family was instantly shaken as Jensen’s plane became uncontrollable and he crashed into the ground.

This single moment changed many perceptions for us. We encountered a swift rush of emotions, and they continued to change throughout the day. Our immediate reaction was that of grave concern for the pilot. Although we now realize that any chance for Mr. Jensen’s survival was extraordinarily slim, we clung to fleeting hopes for his rescue.

Later in the day, we discussed it from a perspective of my racing, and how Peggy would deal with this if it had been me at a race track. From that perspective, I explained how it feels to be in a high-adrenaline moment of danger, and that Bryan Jensen likely maintained exceptional control and a lack of panic to the very end. Time slows down in moments like this, and for trained professionals, there is a surprising reaction of calmness and ability to maintain control. Knowing what I know from high performance driving gave us each some peace of mind. Knowing that he also died doing something he was very passionate about made it easier to accept.

Yes, I Know Danger, Too. This is Me After Braking From 165 MPH.

Our opinions and points of view changed repeatedly, and were shifted from one extreme to another. One very difficult perspective beyond our feelings for Jensen’s friends, family, and others came as I read comments on the YouTube video I uploaded, which included the crash. The user comments inspired anger, compassion, sadness, and more. It became a very confusing mix of feelings. With over 10,000 views within the first 24 hours, there was sure to be many expressed perspectives from one end of the human spectrum to the other, with each having an impact on my own perspective.

There were vulgar comments including everything from teasing my son who immediately just wanted to go straight home where he could feel safe and cry, to saying that a crash is why people go to air shows. Others were frustrated, as I was, that the rescue crews were very slow to arrive on scene … too slow for a race track, a concert, a county fair, and certainly too slow for an air show at an airport.

I normally just moderate comments on YouTube and on my blog after they are made, but after more than a hundred crude and inhumane comments, I set it to require my approval. I didn’t take this lightly, but after some of them truly made my stomach hurt, I decided I had enough of that raw human experience. I was noticing a sense of really looking at humanity differently than I like to, and being reminded that most people simply are not like me … not like me at all.

Perceptions Depend on Perspective

Something that was striking about the comments to this video was their given perspectives. As I read through each comment on YouTube, and in my initial blog post, I found that many pilots, aeronautics fans, event promoters, and others agreed with my view, and were appalled by the response time of the fire crew. After all, there was an economy car, an SUV, a pickup, and an ATV at the crash site, each long before the first fire truck entered the runway. On the opposite side, I found that there were many emergency response personnel including a high number of EMT (emergency medical technicians) who were angry that I criticized the response time.

This showed a very strong two-sided view of the incident, with one side like mine who count on emergency workers, and the other side who took a defensive viewpoint.

In the end, some people may say that my initial reaction of horror was negative toward the emergency response. Others will see that my response was very positive, because even against all odds, it was my reaction to put out the fire and try to save a life. Following that, I knew that the next objective was to preserve evidence in order that a future life may be saved.

The reality of the whole thing is that it came down to perspective. My son, Simon, just wanted to go home and feel something different. I wanted to get somebody there to preserve any hope for life, and to not look back and wonder “what if?” Not just for me, and not just for my family, but for Jensen’s family, friends, onlookers, and anybody who may find themselves feeling less secure at an airport.

Sure, you can say that it was not a commercial flight, and that only one life was at risk, but would the response have been any faster if the plane had crashed into the crowd? Would it look differently if that flight had 200 people on board? These are the questions I pondered.

The Positive Side of Marketing Communications

A positive side to the topic of paradigm shifting is that we each have a chance to change our own perspective, and even that of others. Depending upon how we choose to view things, we can see it as a rainy day at a family outing, or a chance to eat lunch under the wing of a Warthog. In marketing, it is our objective to understand how to help others with a new view of something.

We can choose to see a criticism of the fire crew’s response time as being a negative view toward them, or as positive for the desire to save a life against all odds.

We each have many chances to change our perception each and every day. We also have the same opportunities to help mold others’ perception. This is a marketing blog that teaches people how to create positive results for their companies, and improve their consumers’ perceptions. Others will see marketing as an evil plot to deceive people and get them to spend more money on something they don’t really need or want.

I see marketing as the difference between a company laying off employees, or becoming successful. I see marketing as the reason I have been able to discover the many things I enjoy in my life. Others will see marketing as the reason they made bad decisions and spent more than they could afford.

Many matters in life change depending on perspective. The perspective you use to base your own decisions, and the perspective you deliver to help mold the perception of others will each be huge factors in your success or failure.

Now, I want to ask you for your perspective. Do you view things from multiple perspectives? Do you realize how your communications can change the views of others? Go ahead and add your comments.

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Strategic Marketing Failure: Are You Giving it Up Too Easy?

Good sense tells us to not give it all away upfront. If you kiss on the first date, anticipation often fades, and there may never be a second date. It may get you into their fantasies, or even into their bed, but this will seldom get you into their hearts, where trust and loyalty thrive. I find it easy to apply this to concepts of marketing.

I really believe in giving away a lot of great ideas for free. Sharing useful thought is one of the best reasons to blog. In fact, there should be little wonder why some of the most popular blogs are popular. It is because they are giving away great information that people want.

A free sample is great, but can it go too far? I believe it can, and I think it is likely why there are so many people like my example of “Pete and The Amazing Pee-Pants Pizza Parlor” in my recent article titled “Marketing Clients vs. Crybaby Sissy Bed-Wetters“ who think marketing should be cheap … or free … and easy.

The concern of giving away too much information for free is not limited to my field of marketing. There are a good number of idea-based and information-focused industries where there is a legitimate need to balance enough information to show credibility without inspiring people to do it themselves or shop for a “cheaper” option. Of course, there is always somebody to do it cheaper, but shoppers often forget there is a difference between good and bad in any industry.

There is a line to be drawn between sharing concepts, and giving away the things which should and must be paid for. It is a blurry line for some people. Of course it is very blurry from the client side, but I also find it to be blurry for people on the selling side.

People Understand Value of Items … But Ignore the Value of Information

Information is one of the most valued assets to a company. So how can it be so easy for people to neglect this fact from a buyer’s perspective?

I think of it along the lines of a recent freebie I received from Subway. Subway sent me a $10 gift card to try out their new pulled pork sub. When I used that freebie, I bought more than $10 from them. I’ll go back, too. It was a freebie associated with a promotion through Klout, a company I wrote about recently, and it gave me incentive to walk through Subway’s door, become a more active customer, and potentially bring others.

Since they are giving away tangible goods with a defined cost, people understand they cannot just give away the whole restaurant. When the freebie is something that comes right out of somebody’s thoughts or research, there is a common perception that it does not still have a cost. I guess you could think that way, but when my three kids get hungry because Daddy gave away the whole restaurant, I am inclined to disagree. There is a cost, and there is a point when you have to stop giving everything away. I know that point, and I intend to illustrate it.

Try Asking Somebody Close Enough to Know

When I recently asked my wife for her opinion of a project I am strongly interested in, she said something I guess I should have expected. Her chilling words were “You know the routine, Mark. You give people enough information that they think they know all they need to go shopping for somebody to do it cheaper.”

Of course, I stammer to inject the notion “but they cannot implement it like I can, and they can’t make a meal from a free sample of caviar.” Yes, and I can make that argument until I am blue in the face and holding my breath for the next soul-sucking chance to send another great marketing client to the wolves for a price comparison. It does not change the facts.

You see, I am literally the guy rocket scientists ask when they need a better strategy. They are in an industry that sells flights for over 200 million dollars per seat, and mistakes in their industry are expensive. These are bright people, but social media strategy is not their area of expertise. If I give them a big hunk of brain candy to munch on, it is easy for them to imagine that mister “SuperheroUnderpants” marketing guru in his mom’s basement can do the same job by promoting them on his MySpaceyTwitterBook.

The reality is that far too many of the people I share my brain-samples with use what I give them and go shopping for price. Sure, I can resent that, but it is my own fault. I kiss on the first date, like a sophomore girl hoping to be loved. Actually, I think I do worse than that … I get naked for the whole football team to come and enjoy. I do it all the time, but I am a lot better about it than I used to be. These days, I at least get them to buy me dinner and a movie before I strip myself naked.

I Hate Marketing Marketing!

I love marketing, but I hate selling the services of marketing. I am over-the-top, and almost autistically good at marketing “something else”. I can prove it, and I have earned millions of dollars because of it, but asking me to sell it is like asking to borrow a couple of my teeth.

Yes, marketing is awesome fun, but it feels like a daily trip to the dentist for a colonoscopy to promote and sell it. This is why I have often explained that When I Go to Hell, They Will Have Me Selling SEO.

I can man-up enough to admit that it actually made my chest hurt as I internalized my wife’s insight, but not because it was insulting or untrue. It was very true, and she went on to remind me about other stunning examples when giving too much killed my hopes. It has not just happened once or twice, either. Somebody attempts to brain-rob me every day, but I stick up for myself these days. It is because I have learned the hard way, and forgone great projects and sent them to SuperheroUnderpants who will work for a case of Red Bull and a pirated copy of the next Nintendo game.

A True Story of Giving Too Much for Free

One such project was with a company where I really felt I belonged. I already felt an emotional attachment to the brand and the people. In fact, I was prepared to uproot my family and move to a different city for them. We were already shopping for schools and homes. I wrote about it in the article titled “99 Percent of Marketing Fails, But Eleanor Can Fly!“ and a follow-up titled “How Good SEO Becomes Great SEO: Feed the Gorillas!” It was the perfect scenario … or so it seemed.

Where the ugly part came in was after I returned from our meeting in Chicago where they had wanted me to bring my vision and build a new marketing crew for them. As I look back, I suspect that even before my plane landed, they were seeking somebody who would try and implement my ideas for a fraction of the salary. They found one, too … but wait for the real kicker!

That “somebody” totally destroyed the campaign, and in fact, destroyed it so badly that it is hard to even describe. Let me give you the quick version. They sent a $70,000 motorcycle and a $5,000 guitar on tour with a Grammy award winning band to promote a giveaway. It was to have a significant social media marketing push behind it, and the company said they were very dedicated to my ideas. They already had a significant investment leading up to it. How significant? They bought the company that made the motorcycle, because they thought it fit well with their brand … the brand that I was to build.

Now get this: By the time they gave away that $75,000 in prizes, their Twitter account had under 350 followers, their Facebook account had about the same, and their YouTube account did not have a single upload. Not one video of the band, the motorcycle, the fans, the guitar … nothing!

They failed, and I know, with mathematics and two decades of very successful experience on my side, that they caused their own demise. Although you could call me guilty for not explaining that great plans fail without implementation and the right crew, I don’t feel guilty. I just feel bad for giving too much for free.

Defining Free vs. Paid Knowledge

Each of us will have ways to define giving away “too much”, but here are a few of mine. I hope they will inspire you to think about yours.

First and foremost … a client only needs to know enough about me to realize that I have sufficient marketing creativity, experience, and talent to make them more successful. Period! If they are unwilling to consume enough of my freebies to realize these things, they will not be the kind of client I can work with, because they will second-guess my advice. That is a true recipe for failure, the likes of which I refuse to be a part of.

Another key is anybody indicating they are still shopping around for price. When that is the case, there are no freebies beyond my blog. If they are looking for price above value, they are not the paying type. Even if they pay, they will stand in their own way. They simply are not ready. They are the ones who search Google for “How much does SEO cost?” (where I am listed on the top), and then email me because they were too rushed to get numbers to actually read the correct answer. If they don’t hire me today, they will come back in a year or two, jaded by the failure I tried to warn them about. Both scenarios are like a bad case of herpes … I don’t put my love there!

If they say they are interested in meeting in person, that is not going to happen without their dollars. I don’t pack bags for free. If somebody needs to shake my hand, they need to pay me for it. They are a buyer, and I am not about to turn them into a looker. There is always a reason to ask me to meet with them, and it always involves custom brain-work. The custom stuff is never free.

I have a long list of things which define what is free versus paid, but I want to know what you think.

Should We Give Away Less Brainflow?

It really isn’t so different from the restaurant or sporting goods store giving away a freebie. It cannot all be free, or the company is not sustainable.

I will never stop giving away free ideas, but those are the ones like the $10 Subway gift card to bring buyers through the door. I give enough that people understand my knowledge, creativity, and credibility. I also do it for the people who need help, but cannot afford to hire my services, and I feel good about that, too. I believe in altruism, but I also recognize that even Mother Teresa, Ghandi, and others do things for well-intentioned but calculated reasons, and that altruism in its purest sense, is not what people told you.

I have learned the hard way. If you are giving away something better than the stuff other people are selling for money, you will damn yourself to lackluster clients if you cannot bring them to understand that there is a lot more where the freebies came from … and it’s for sale!

I know that I’m not alone in this battle. I’ve heard it from many respected others in my line of work. If you can relate to this, I want to hear your stories. I would also love to hear from you about where you draw the line between free ideas and the ideas you count on to buy your lunch.

If you are giving away too much, I’d also be curious to hear how your back feels after sleeping on the couch because you bought into the myth that information is “free”. I’m sleeping in the big bed tonight. Later sucker!

Photo Credit:
Birthday Present by Christopher Matson via Flickr

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Is Social Media Like Space Exploration?

Social Media and Space Exploration are Both Fascinating

Space has captivated mankind since our earliest days. We wonder what is up there beyond our reach, and it fascinates us. I have recently been thinking about how social media is a lot like space exploration. It holds a lot of mystery, and it inspires us to learn what is out there beyond our geographical confines.

Why do we constantly strive to understand the things we do not know? Can any of us adequately answer that question? I sincerely ask for your ideas and opinions on this. I think the simple answers are at our fingertips. It excites us to get our brain cells working, and to make something new and useful happen, but it goes much deeper than this.

Just think of all the great possibilities for us as we discover new things. When we stretch our imagination, we reach beyond our own current capabilities and it keeps us moving forward. The desire to learn about the things which are just beyond our grasp has inspired countless innovations to bring us closer. Those innovations include boats, trains, airplanes, cars, telephones, the Internet, and many more … even space ships.

Knowledge is Keeping Us Alive

It is easy to argue that striving to know more is what keeps us alive. As our planet’s population doubled from three billion in 1960 to over six billion just forty years later, our knowledge has grown with it. The knowledge did not just grow because we had more people, but because the ability to communicate and build upon their ideas grew.

With mankind’s growing knowledge came innovation, and it was based on necessity. Just between 1987 when the five billionth baby was born and their 12th birthday in 1999 when the six billionth was born, the need to keep up with growing demand for food, water, shelter, and distribution of goods created a huge burden.

It would be easy to look at a simpler time and say that we didn’t need all of this technology. Things used to look easier in some ways, and time seemed to move slower. Some will imagine it as an “easier” time, before modern technology, but when we look out across a crowd of over six billion people breeding faster and dying slower than ever before, we realize that it is too late to turn back now.

We may not all see it the same way, but one thing is clear … if we are to maintain what we have today, we must keep learning and progressing … we must innovate.

Learning, creating, and imagining new things has made it possible for us to sustain our planet at its current highest population ever. In another forty years, our population is expected to reach nine billion people … a full nine times Earth’s population 200 years ago.

Commitment to innovation is how we discovered even the most basic things which serve us every day, like fire, hammers, scissors, and that little clip on a bread bag that keeps the bread fresh. The human imagination and potential for innovation is amazing, but it holds little value if we don’t use it, and if we don’t maintain its momentum. Innovation is greatly improved when we involve others, and that is why we have “think tanks” and “incubators” for our best ideas, and our best thinkers.

I believe that the greatest think tank of all is social media. With social media, we can share our ideas with others, and allow them to help us mold them into something better.

Space Shuttle Atlantis at NASA Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39A

How is Social Media Like Space Exploration?

The reason I’m thinking of space exploration today is because I was recently approached to define a social media strategy to help people understand the need for space exploration, and its benefits to innovation.

A remarkable parallel between social media and space exploration is that most people will agree that they both hold great value, but yet, lack the confidence to invest properly, and patience to maximize their respective benefits.

Creating confidence to invest is a big challenge. Times are tough, and people are afraid of their government defaulting, their money losing value, and their jobs dissolving into thin air. Why would taxpayers and business leaders spend money on such progressive research?

A similar argument came along with “The Human Genome Project“. That $800 billion project came with an answer for the people when studies showed a 141:1 ratio return on investment. That’s $141 dollars in additional economic activity for every government dollar invested. Try that with your mutual fund.

Many governments spend horribly. In fact, I think my own is among the very worst, in USA. I am not for big government in the least little way. Our government’s job is not to do our thinking and our bidding for us. It is our government’s job to foster a safe and organized society and get out of our way. At the same time, the decisions which affect our continued scientific exploration are often relegated to our governments. That is because it is often a part of providing that safety and organization which is their duty.

Knowledge Creates Economic Stability … Yes, Jobs!

Science serves to remind us that we don’t know how much we don’t know. Social media does the same.

Scientific study such as genomes and space exploration produce the information and engineering we need to maintain and improve our lives, and they also create huge numbers of jobs. Those jobs include engineers, laborers, office workers, teachers, builders, and so many others. Think of “The Butterfly Effect” to imagine the diversity of jobs and other related benefits to the scientific study of space.

I have asked a few friends how they believe the aerospace industry has changed their lives and careers. Each of them could name at least a few ways it has made their lives better. It affects medicine, farming, fishing, alternative energy production, navigation, weather forecasting, and so much more … not the least of which is the transfer of information from one side of the world to the other, via satellite. Cardiac pacemakers, breast cancer screening, smoke detectors, cordless drills, and many other great things came from space exploration and related research. It reminds me that we are good at seeing the dots, but until we use systemic thinking we often cannot connect the dots between space and our daily lives.

Of the friends I have asked so far, not a single one was opposed to learning more about the real-world ways that the aerospace industry is helping to keep us safer, happier, and more economically stable. Fortunately, each of them also recognized that the matter of funding space programs is not a partisan effort with democrats against republicans. Both major political parties in America are largely in favor of continuing space exploration, but the people making policies and determining funding want to hear it from the people.

The space program in the United States used to be a matter of national pride, and as we sent men to the moon, the world cheered. Many people never realized the scientific and engineering leaps forward we made in the process. As the novelty of a moon landing wore off, a lot of people stopped following the progress of space exploration.

As I have asked around, I found that many people do not realize we have had successful landings on Mars since 1976 (Viking 1 and Viking 2) or that we have had humans manning a space station every night and day for over a decade, and why. Even fewer will realize the benefits of the 2012 launch of the most sophisticated Mars rover ever, or how close we are to sending a manned mission to Mars. Due to such a public loss of interest, only a very small group recognize the enormous technology, engineering, and economic impacts this science has right here on the ground.

The challenge I find most profound, as I consider how to present the benefits of social media to this organization, is to help them understand that like their own world of space exploration, without a commitment to research and testing, they will not know the answers. Until they know how to effectively define and present the benefits, those benefits do not exist in the minds of the people.

I feel like my job of explaining the benefits and complexities of social media are much like their challenges to explain space exploration. Many people are afraid of making an investment in what they do not understand. Tragically, they have a much easier time embracing that fear than recognizing the more logical concern of what happens if they do not.

In this particular case, thousands of jobs may be affected. NASA’s failure to abide by federal mandates to define and announce plans for future projects threatens to put thousands of people working for private industry out of work. If that happens and we scatter the most talented industry leaders to the wind, the loss of progress will be tragic. The social media effort to help people understand the risks at hand and force NASA to comply will not be easy. Inspiring 50,000 of them to write a letter to their representative in U.S. Congress within the next six months will be even harder.

I guess an old cliche that comes to mind with such a challenge can apply here. If we can put a man on the moon, we can do almost anything. Yes, we can put a man on the moon, but can we save the U.S. space program from continued downsizing? My challenge will be to explain the unknown benefits of social media to my prospective client, and then to help explain the unseen benefits of space exploration to the public.

Until recently, I never realized how similar the challenge would really be, or how similar social media is to space exploration. I look forward to that challenge.

My overriding concern is that if we fail to think big and act accordingly, we lose all hope of being excellent, and risk being mediocre. Once we become mediocre, the cost to regain our lost excellence is far greater than the foresight to become excellent in the first place.

What Do You Think?

I want to know what you think. Is space exploration and its related technology advancement still important? Can you see how it is kind of like social media in the sense of both being very useful if you can uncover their mysteries? Please share your thoughts with me. If you have any ideas on how I can better present the benefits of my role to educating more people on behalf of my prospective client, please share that, too.

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Balancing SEO Practicality and Social Media Popularity

Balancing SEO and Social Media Takes Effort

There must be a squillion discussions of SEO versus social media out there on this vast Internet. Many of them are promoting one approach to website marketing, and suggesting that one is more important than the other. What often keeps them at odds is the perspective of the author, but let’s examine the truth of just how much they work in synergy.

A biased “this versus that” view of SEO and social media will often downplay the things that hold these two subjects together inseparably. Each can be used with practicality, and each can be used to create popularity, but let’s take a closer look at their respective roles. I want to use plain and simple logic to suggest ways to balance the two for the benefit of your business.

Do your eyes hurt? If your eyes are getting tired, just click play and listen. It’s the same thing, without the strain.

I could take this thinking tangent in a lot of directions, and for each of them, I could probably find arguments against my own ideas. That doesn’t mean I’m unclear on this, but simply that there are a lot of variables. I’ll save our thinking tangent for your comments and we can build on these thoughts together, but here is what I’m thinking.

In marketing, there are no one-shot miracle bullets to bring down the huge beast that will feed your clan. It takes a combination of many efforts to build a brand and to create a successful online business presence. Two very popular methods for creating success online are SEO (that’s search engine optimization) and social media marketing.

These two tools each have great benefits, but there is often a compromise to be made which favors one or the other. They work in synergy, with each building upon the other, but there is a balancing point. I want you to consider this in terms of SEO being more leveled toward a sales approach, with social media being more geared toward your branding. Of course, they can both produce sales, and they can both produce branding, but just go with this for a moment.

First things first, I want you to consider this simple fact, and I hope it doesn’t shock you. People are selfish. Wait a minute, though … that does not mean they are evil! It is simply to say that people care more about other things than they care about your brand, what you have for sale, or helping you to promote it.

I don’t mean those people out there using social media are all just out to squish your hopes, or that they will not lend you a hand if you ask them nicely. What I mean is simply that people have an instinctive drive to meet their own needs and desires, while your needs and desires probably don’t come at the top of their list.

Give Them Good Reasons to Share

If you don’t provide good reasons that people will want to share what you have to say about your brand or your industry, your social media efforts will lose a lot of their potential impact. Sure, you may have a perfect customer model drawn out, and you may be just certain that you are reaching the right people with your message, but consider this: Reaching the people who reach the people can be far more valuable to your brand. That is “influence marketing” and it is an art of reaching your market through their influencers. It works on the known principle that somebody referring others to your business is better than trying to promote your sales pitch directly to the consumer.

One of the greatest scenarios of social media marketing is when people share your brand message. It can make the marketing value far greater than your own reach or budget would withstand otherwise, but it starts with something much more than a sales pitch.

This sort of “influence marketing” is frequently spread far wider, because it makes use of more than just who you encounter, but also includes who they encounter. I certainly don’t want to give the impression that just because you give them good reasons, that they will use them, or that you will benefit. It just increases the probability, but when it is a hit, it is usually a bigger hit than expected.

Why SEO Allows Stronger Call to Action

People search for things online 24 hours per day, and some of them are shopping. If they search, but you’re not there with your offer to help them, the odds are pretty slim that they will become your customer.

There are many ways to target your market using social media, and it is extremely important. In fact, here is a great example of gathering data and targeting a market using Facebook (see “Facebook Marketing: Pages, Customer Modeling, Promoting, and Awesomeness“). However, you simply cannot downplay the fact that when somebody searches for something on Google, it is based on their intent to find something and not your intent to find them. They are searching for it on their time frame, using their criteria, so if they find you, there is a good chance to make them a customer. Even when it is not a shopping quest, they are clearly interested in the topic of the search or they would not have been searching.

When these same people who search the Internet are using social media, they may be shopping, too. Let’s not count on that, and let’s consider why branding is often a much smarter objective.

As a side note, something very practical about SEO is that it can produce both short-term profit gains and also long-term results with comparatively minimal maintenance. Social media has similar long and short-term benefits, but it will require highly attentive ongoing efforts.

Why Social Media Provides Stronger Branding

It is pretty clear that social media asserts a different set of standards to selling. If somebody reads your “buy it right now because you really need this and here’s why ours is the best” statement after searching for it, that’s great! Hopefully you will make it really easy for them to buy it right then.

On the other hand, if they see your pitch in their Facebook, Twitter, or other social media spaces, they may not be put off by it, but they are certainly not as likely to be in the market, currently. Unless it is an impulse buy, or something unique and special, your message will often be better received if it is branding-focused versus being overtly sales oriented. If you want it to be both popular and sales-oriented, you had better plan for there to be something in it for the people … like free money, free food, or something compelling.

The difference between overtly sales-focused efforts and branding is often made obvious by a much softer and customer-oriented approach. That is because, although a strong call-to-action may have good intentions for the customer, branding involves a process of giving people greater reasons to love the company.

In comparison to that SEO pitch I described, try to think of a branding approach more like this: “Yes, we sell that, but let us tell you all the cool stuff you can do with it. If you are looking for one of these, we will be delighted to assist you. Oh, and if you know somebody else looking for one of these, we would love to meet them and we’ll take good care of them.”

Bringing SEO and Social Media Together

Companies implement good SEO to make their website show up higher in search results, and for more search terms. It all makes good sense, and once people find them in a search, it is easier to drive a call to action. You know … giving them good reasons to buy, and asking for the sale.

Balanced Marketing is Productive Marketing

Social media is a bit trickier in some respects. If you are trying to sell something, it is important to know that if you do it with branding in mind, and make efforts to be useful and interesting, you will find that a lot more people will share your message with others. When they do that, they will share it in the form of links to your website. Those links to your website are what will help the shared content, everything it links to, and the whole website to rank better in search engines. Thus, you get the benefit of both the SEO and the social media.

Many people try hard to make these two things look totally divergent. Some will look at SEO as some kind of technical trickery, like maybe it is all in the website’s source code. In fact, there are many ways people will try to make SEO very confusing when it really isn’t. Yes, it is a very technical trade in many respects, but those who will have you believe that it involves machines more than it involves people are the same kind who will look at my source code to try and figure out my “tricks”. If you have a good sense of humor and are not easily offended, go ahead and look.

Sometimes, in a perfect world, you may find opportunities to strike a good balance by making something both “SEO Practical” and sales-oriented, while still having something useful enough to be “Social Media Popular” and shared by others. Although it is not always possible within the same content, it can happen, and I’ve seen it done. It requires balancing a good amount of usefulness and branding, while also having a strong call to action.

Summing it up: In the spirit of good social media, I hope you found this line of thinking useful. If so, please add your comments and share this article with others. In the spirit of SEO, click here to contact me and hire my services before your competition does. I only have an opening for one new client, so contact me right now, before I am booked solid and you miss the many great opportunities I can create for your company.

You see how that works? It is nice, isn’t it? Now what do you have to say about this?

Photo Credits:
Tightrope by Quinn Dombrowski via Flickr
Barely Balanced by Frank Kovalchek via Flickr

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Marketing Clients vs. Crybaby Sissy Bed-Wetters

When people lack confidence in proper marketing, they lose! They lose time, they lose opportunities, and they lose money … lots of it! I don’t even feel a need to prove this, because for people who don’t get it, we have a phrase for that. The phrase is “survival of the fittest”, and if you have some guts, you are far more fit than a lot of your competition.

Believe me when I say that most of your competitors are total wimps! If we took them back to elementary school, you could see most of your competition walking to the office to call Mommy and ask her to bring a dry pair of pants to school. They are scared, and to say they are “pants-wetting scared” is not such a big stretch.

I mean, look at yourself … aren’t you just a tiny bit creeped out? Doesn’t it give you the willies just a little to do what it really takes to grow your company?

Seriously, if you never knew this, you deserve to know. Most people making decisions about marketing for their company are scared to death of marketing. I am going to share a real-life story with you in a moment to emphasize the point, but for a moment, just take it on faith.

This common fear of marketing is especially the case with the good kind of marketing that comes with proper research, solid strategy, efficient forecasting, and net profit … yes, positive return on investment. The reason the good profit-generating marketing is scariest of all is because it is the kind that requires decisive action … and money!

Drat! It’s another one of those long reads. Don’t worry, though, because I recorded it for you. Just click play and listen if you like. It is sure to give you some food for thought and a laugh … I’m sure of it!

The Way Many Companies View Marketing

A lot of companies seek the lowest possible effort and the highest possible return. That is smart business, but they often focus more on that low effort and completely lose sight of the highest return.

You see, now that every reception desk has a computer, marketing is pretty much free. Just look around and you may discover that this is how your competition sees it. Anybody can prepare and execute a brilliant marketing campaign. All they have to do is sign up for one of those Facebook thingies, Twitterize 25-26 hours per day, and put some smiley-happy employees and customers on YouTube.

Voila! The marketing is fixed, and the money train will be chugging down the tracks in no time!

It may sound crazy to you, and I hope it does, but this is really how a lot of companies approach their online marketing. It is so simple that all it will take is a tweet or a Facebook mention. They see companies like the ones mentioned in an article I read in Telegraph.uk. Here is a quote:

Ticketmaster estimates that every time one of their customers posts on Facebook that they’ve bought a ticket, their friends spend an additional $5.30 with the site. When last year’s Google conference was taking place, they tweeted the morning of the conference: “100 tickets left, 550 bucks a piece, use this promotion code”. 11 minutes later they tweeted, “Sold them, thank you.” That’s $55,000 in sales with one tweet in 11 minutes.

Rub a lamp and wish for a genie! You don’t have Ticketmaster demand or Google reach. Something is stopping you, though, and it is not the tools … it is the planning and strategy. If you keep doing what you are doing, you will likely keep getting what you get. If it is time to step it up, then step it up and do something brilliant. Do something with a strategy! On the other hand, if it is time to lie down and die … do that, and go peacefully. Just don’t keep waiting for that magic genie to arrive. He’s not coming!

Break for a Wise Marketing Tip:

Some people actually screw this all up and think that what they are paying for with proper marketing is just a task. Any moron can do a task, so it should be cheap, right? I provided some examples of this train wreck mentality in the articles as follows:

Social Media Marketing Pricing Like Cab Rides by the Pothole“

… and the profoundly absurd

“Hourly Rate for Setting Up Social Media Profiles?!“

Damn the luck, it seems that somebody tried to shove the whole population of marketing professionals into the same cage as if we are all the same critter. The good and bad are all mixed into one, and along with my high-end marketing buddies, I guess people surely think that we get paid for what we do.

The larger truth is that we get paid for what we know, how we know how to know what we know, how we think and analyze, who we know, and the other really unimaginable stuff that comes with experience, marketing talent, and brute creativity.

Pete and The Amazing Pee-Pants Pizza Parlor

I have a story about a guy named Pete. Seriously, this is a true story. Pete is very excited about selling his wildly amazing and awesomely marketable pizza franchise across the USA. He will possibly succeed, once he gets out of his own way, but he is still walking around in wet pants and trying to keep from vomiting at the thought of finally bringing it to market.

Sure, Pete logically knows that marketing is his most important asset. He realizes that Starbucks was a little coffee company and Subway was a little sandwich shop, and still would be without great marketing.

Actually, his name is not Pete, and his business is not pizza, but I’ll use that. His name is close enough to Pete, and his retail food franchise business is close enough to pizza to make the same point. The story is about a series of calamities that just drive me nuts. Nuts enough to share my opinion, and to welcome yours.

Here is the “hot sheet” version of how things have gone so far. Pete contacted me a year ago about his business. He was referred to me by a friend whom he trusts. Our mutual friend told Pete that the project was way out of her league. She explained that based on his hopes for massive adoption of his new franchise opportunity, he needs Murnahan (that’s me). Not a guy like me … me!

When Pete first contacted me, he was in an urgent rush to get his marketing in order. He was very concerned that he had already waited too long. He was afraid that based on his time frame for other business plans, he needed me on the project “yesterday”.

Pete was more than just a little blown away by things I shared with him about the possibilities for his business. I guess it was stupid of me to start dolling out free brain-juice, but heck, he was a referral, after all. Based on his own wildly flattering statements toward me, I was assured that he wanted to be my client, so I let fly with a few pan drippings from my brain in the roasting pan.

Dumb dumb Murnahan … I knew better, because giving too much freebie talk is a big open door to truckloads of non-paying brain work. I do it though, and it almost always bites me in the ass, because people really hate that transition to actually paying for the knowledge they need.

Skipping forward a damn long year and a whole bunch of phone calls that he has never paid for, Pete is calling me with wet pants again. He needs some serious help, and he talks like he is actually ready now.

The huge pause in his business was a funding snafu. Wouldn’t you know it that somehow those banking folks actually like qualified market projections in the business plan before they fund a deal. It is too bad Pete never thought of getting some better facts to work with. Maybe a year wouldn’t have spun by so rough for him.

Well, I guess we’ll kill the hooker tonight and worry about it tomorrow. Now we can just wing it on a half-assed budget and hope to make the bank happy. Yep, that’s how we roll, right Pete and Pete-like thinkers?

By the way, when I tease Pete about his wet pants or describe him as a shaky handed sweaty little fella who pulls the blankets over his head so the monsters don’t get him, I want to note that I like Pete. I like him plenty fine, even if he is a crybaby sissy bed-wetter and horrific planner.

Pete is a fine fella, and he will likely do very well in his business. His first and scariest step will be to listen to the consultant / strategist as much as he talks. Actually, before he can meet that scary challenge, he will have to get up off his steamy little pee-soaked wallet and pay for the scary monster he needs advice from.

The craziest thing I ever heard was when he finally rubbed his wet panties into my telephone ear yesterday and started asking for references. What the hell? We covered that last year! He has been putting his short-n-chubby in my ear all this time, reading my blog, sending me Facebook messages, email, and asking me for more brain-drippings, and now he’s asking if I’m qualified?! This is the same guy who has referred others to me when they needed serious help!

His biggest expressed concern is that I am a few hour flight away from his cozy little blankie. He wants to be able to manage my work close-up. Well if that isn’t silly … all it takes is money. If he is doing it right … I mean, right enough to sell 150 pizza franchises in the next two years, the least of his worry should be the cost of an airline ticket!

Somebody just effin’ give me a tequila, a hooker, and quarter to call home and I’ll sell more damn pizza stores than this guy can handle.

Pete has hopes, but they are only hopes so far. They are not goals, because he doesn’t have the market data to set goals yet. He is pretty reluctant to gather it, too.

Why do people try to kill me like this? Is it because they don’t have confidence in their market offering? Is it because they are so scared they would rather go broke than invest wisely in their own futures? Is it because they have no balls? What the hell?

I swear, if I put Pete in a room with the guy I recently wrote about hoping to put “100 percent” into his health and beauty industry marketing, but yet keep the budget under $10,000, I could slow down time enough that my trip to the looney bin will feel like a whole lifetime! Maybe my conniption will be worth it.

OK … that got a little teensy bit rant-ish, but sure was fun! Go ahead and level me out. Be my friend and help me to calm down and breath slower.

😉

I sincerely believe that marketing in itself is the hardest field of all to market to clients. It is because in damn near every other product or service I have ever marketed, there is always some sense that the potential customer has two brain cells to rub together. This is often simply not the case when people are in the market for marketing services. Not since the invention of the Internet money-train.

One more thing … Can somebody tell me who I need to whack over the head to get a decent client with dry pants?

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