marketing talent Archives - Page 4 of 7 by Mark Murnahan

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.

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99 Percent of Marketing Fails, But Eleanor Can Fly!

I have heard percentages of marketing efforts that do not work. I have witnessed those statistics enough to reach the top of my throat, and to declare that most marketing is little more than miserable failure, like the last squeak of a mouse in a trap. In fact, if you held my job for a day or two, you could even taste it like bad acid reflux. It is really true though, that most marketing falls on deaf ears, and the masses are immune to it. This is largely because these days, anybody with a computer and an Internet connection can bill themselves as an expert marketer. The barrier of entry no longer requires aptitude, experience, or even desire for anything other than somebody else’s money.

The odds of a marketer to recognize the root of our field as helping others with respect, dignity, and a desire to serve them has diminished to a point that skepticism is allowed to take over as a prevalent factor. This means that trust … hard-earned and well-deserved trust is due for a resurgence. A recall to the very root of the word “sell” is what it takes to be really great in a marketplace. If you have not learned this from your marketing pedigree just yet, the word “sell”, in this context, owes its origin to the Norwegian word “selje”. The literal translation is “to serve”, and that still means a lot to some of us.

The job of a professional marketer is to figure out that tiny fraction which does work. What we do is to serve our clients in a way which reflects our desire to benefit more than only ourselves, and to serve others at our highest capabilities. It means that a great marketer must look beyond the benefit of a few bucks today and understand the greater benefit of tomorrow.

A Happy Marketing Success Story

As the economy spooks many companies into bankruptcy and executive fears of failed marketing reach the brim of my digestive system and invoke my gag reflex, I want to tell you a success story. Yes, amongst all of the corporate scaremongering and enterprise torment, there really is success in the mix. This story is a real one, and if it is what I believe it is, it exemplifies success in the hardest market ever, which is to find personal and professional satisfaction.

Join with me and jump on board with my excitement for a moment. Raise your hands and start cheering while I share an exciting story of enterprise SEO success.

There is a company, a tried and true success in their marketplace, who picked up the mouse and found me. They searched for what I do, they took time to read a small share of my facts, figures, and persona, and we met by voice over the telephone. The story has more detail, which I will share as it unfolds, but for the moment, I offer you a piece of my expectedly upfront social media transparency.

The caller on the other end of the phone was a bright and cheery executive who revamped much of the delight that I have held so dearly as my ideal marketplace. This was not an intern at the local veterinary clinic asking how they could get a few more sick dogs to treat. It was not even an auto dealer seeking answers to social media marketing. It was a fellow gearhead executive calling on behalf of a gearhead company. He spoke my language, and we held discussions of real marketing beyond just the couple clicks up the roller coaster track that most companies will attempt before they take the chicken exit and get off the ride while the cars roll back into the loading area.

This guy was speaking my kind of language. You know, the language of waking up and smelling gear oil, coffee, and yesterday’s sweat. The kind of stuff that would intimidate Clint Eastwood and force Chuck Norris to turn in his “Man Card” and scream “Uncle” like a crybaby-sissy-bed-wetter. Yes, it was as if the Chairman of Manhood and the CEO of Testosterone were in stereo driving an epic bass line directly into my entrepreneurial earphones.

When I tell you this guy is right up my alley, I only claim that because I actually pictured him taking down six Chicago street thugs with nothing but a toothpick and a rubber band … yep, in an alley … my alley. Indeed, this dude instilled just enough of a masculine man-crush that when I told the story to my wife, she actually recounted it, in jest, with a boy-meets-girl kind of scenario and somebody was about to lean in for the first kiss. She didn’t get to the part where they sweat on each other, but probably just because that made her a bit weak in the knees. The fog of testosterone floating around would be enough to stop most hearts dead in their tracks.

In our encounter, it was as if I was driving Eleanor from the movie “Gone in 60 Seconds” and … well, like we were both driving Eleanor (e.g. Barrett-Jackson Auto Auction LOT: 1287). All but one detail, he actually has yet come to liberate my Eleanor-plus sized budget from the company’s board of directors. He will be working on them this week, and I will assist him in that jailbreak all I can. It will be important that my new gearhead friends understand that there is a vast difference between Lot 1287 and the dozens of other nice 1967 Mustangs in the list, and the difference is not all about the price … it is value which matters.

While we visited, I discovered the most awkward scenario. The company has me pictured as an in-house corporate SEO guy. At first, I felt a little tear on my cheek, because I know there are only a relatively few companies who understand the value that a C-level position in my industry can provide for them, or how much a long-standing CEO requires just to keep feeding his family. Then I started remembering how much I hate selling SEO. I mean, after all, you can Google something as simple as “sell SEO” or “how to sell SEO” and find that I know a lot about this business. My best scenario of how to sell SEO is just to be able to do it, prove it, and earn a squillion dollars from it. I already did that. My selling is over, and what I mostly want is to do the work I love, and to never have to slink my way out of a boardroom because some kid with less talent but a better line of garbage talked them into some cheap SEO. Realistically, any boardroom worth the table where they sit should be able to distinguish real marketing talent from a marketing representative waiting for his next diaper change. If they cannot recognize that difference, maybe a quick Google for “marketing talent” will flip the butter and the bread in the right direction and show them where the real deal lives and thrives. Where that butter meets the bread is with the guy holding uncanny skills (marketing and gearhead alike), a history of success, and a knack for telling what people need to hear even if it is not what they want to hear. That is a guy with the company in mind, whether he is working as their independent SEO consultant or as their boardroom fun department ready to whip out his clown nose and reveal his magic bag filled with market share, acquisition targets, increased leverage, stronger investors, retail fanaticism, and other boardroom delights.

In either scenario which my gear-hugging pals over there prefer, my Eleanor+ (performance bonus, equity, and etcetera) price point is a cheap jailbreak to fire up the passion of a real gearhead marketer who can come to the office and bang out high-compression gasoline flavored treats the way I would passionately provide for these guys.

 I doubt they can afford me, but I am just as sure as motor oil and gasoline going to give them every opportunity to try. It really comes down to how their board of directors view the value of the Internet and my impact upon it.

To my new gearhead pals, I have a tip for your use in our synergistic battle in the boardroom. If they want to know how to justify SEO cost, just Google it! They will find the same guy as when you were seeking how to find SEO talent. 😉

NOTE: To my many longstanding and devoted clients, many of which have been with my services for a decade, please be aware that nothing will shake my devotion to you. You will continue to receive the highest attention from my highly capable support representatives, and you can expect the same level of service which you have trusted me with for so long. As you are surely aware, there is no dollar amount which can purchase my integrity.

Marketing Strategy: Do Shit They Will Remember!

Yes, It Is Me. Yes, It Is My Chopper. — Yes, That Is My Chopper.

Are you being memorable? Do you recall a silly little man cruising the aisles of the grocery store nagging people to not squeeze the Charmin? His name was Mr. Whipple. OK, maybe that one is too old for you to remember, or you are not familiar with American pop culture. I remember it, and I’ll bet there are millions of others who do as well.

Maybe you remember Elvis Presley. Does he even need a last name? Can you remember what kind of outfits he wore? That’s right, he wore a lot of glittery white outfits and huge bell-bottom pants.

You don’t need a squillion dollars and a huge staff to be memorable. This is one of the beautiful things about the Internet. You just need some creativity and knowledge of spreading your message using search engine optimization and social media marketing. You don’t really even need these things, because they are available for hire! So, what is keeping you from making your brand more memorable? Are you afraid of shaking things up? Don’t worry. You don’t have to be outrageous, either. A consistent brand message that is all your own can still be memorable without being absurd or over-the-top.

Who Invented Business in Blue Jeans?

I guess I don’t really have the answer to this, but I retired my suits years before it became popular. It was not because I had a problem with the attire, but rather that it would often misrepresent my intentions. Many sales managers still believe that the “authority” of wearing a suit is important in instilling value to a product or service. It may strike some people as odd, but I have signed more million dollar deals in blue jeans than in a suit. I realized long ago that wearing a nice pair of blue jeans or casual slacks was more disarming. It made people more comfortable just seeing me being comfortable, and it even made me more memorable. If a client wanted to know that I am an authority, they could look out in the parking lot to see the motorcycle I rode in on that cost more than a house or two in most towns. It is far less assuming than a sharp suit, and better for conversation, too.

More memorable than anything else is that I would rather walk through spiderwebs and kiss a dog on the ass than to mislead people just to get what I want from them. If I don’t have what it is they need or want, I will be happy to help them find it, but I will not misrepresent something to make it fit. Honesty … now that is memorable!

What Will Make You Memorable?

Don’t be afraid to be a dubeshag. No, it is not what you think. “Dubeshag” is a nice word I made up a few months ago to describe people who can make their own waves instead of trying to surf everybody else’ wave. I guess the idea was memorable enough that it kind of caught on. Google now returns over 26,400 results for the word which had zero representation a few months ago. That is what I mean by being creative and memorable.

In short, I would suggest being creative. Think differently, because thinking just like everybody else is probably not your golden ticket. If you cannot think different from a crowd, hire somebody to do the thinking for you. Don’t be afraid to polarize your audience along the way, because you simply can’t make butter if you don’t stir the milk.

What do you think? What will make you different from the millions of others out there in the vast Internet marketplace? Can you set yourself apart and do shit they will remember?

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Marketing Fail: You Want to Sell Me What?!

Have you ever wondered how there came to be so many Internet marketing experts and search engine optimizers in the world? My guess is because it is so darn easy a caveman could do it. At least it seems that is what they were told back at marketing school.

I love marketing. It is the only reason I watch the Super Bowl. I love to see great marketing, and to watch companies take off like an eagle. The unfortunate reality is that unskilled marketing flies with all the grace of the dodo bird.

I want to share two extreme examples of marketing failure I have recently been assaulted by. I received each of these in just the last few hours, and they come in great abundance each and every day. I think these examples explain a lot about why I encounter so many people skeptical about their marketing efforts. It is this kind of marketing that damages my whole industry.

Marketing Fail One: “Mould Providing”?

I will start with an email message I received only a few hours ago offering to sell me molds. Molds? Yes, molds! Why somebody would try to sell me molds is way over my head. This marketing failure was not only way off the target audience, but they even spelled the product name differently (language variance) in the subject line and body of the email. Then they went on to write the email as if they were the SEO just out of search engine optimization school trying to make the most of their keywords. I guess they needed to search engine optimize their email for some reason. Needless to say, I will not be purchasing any molds (or moulds either), so don’t even go there!

This goes well beyond just a language or cultural barrier, so before you give this “Marketing Engineer” a break, consider how he and millions of other spammers like him damage the marketplace for others. They collectively hinder the attention span and trust of each of us and make us more stubborn about our marketing expectations.

Subject: Mould Providing
Dear Sir/Madam,

Our company, King Mold Limited is located in Shenzhen City Guangdong province of China. We are middle size of mold maker company and about 100 machines in house. We made about 500 molds last year and 90% molds were exported to Europe, North American and other oversea areas.We are able to make small and simple molds, big and complex molds, we have made some insert molds, overmolds, two shot molds, gas assistant molds, unscrewing molds, hot runner molds and complex molds with many sliders drived by hydraulic cylinder.

Thank you for your time in advance. Your prompt attention will be highly appreciated!

Sincerely yours,

Tony /Marketing Engineer

You may be curious how Tony the Marketing Engineer targeted me for this brilliant marketing campaign. Yes, I was curious, too. You know, I love tracking things, because I am a marketer. This particular marketing failure came by way of email addressed to “thebigcheese@veryimportantguy.com” which is an address that I used in only one place … ever. That was in a blog article I wrote at “Mobile – Local – Social” titled “Cc: How Social Media Killed Email“, and I knew at the time some email spiders would come and scoop up the email address.

Marketing Fail Two: First Page Google Listing

First, I want to explain that this email came from my contact page here at aWebGuy.com and the sender had to pass a Captcha form to send it. What makes me want to reach out and ring the collective neck of this form of marketing “expert” is that it has lead a lot of people to really think of search engine optimization (SEO) as a joke. Here is the email I received:

Want more clients and customers? We will help them find you by putting you on the 1st page of Google. Email us back to get a full proposal

I wonder what, exactly they would like to get me ranked on the first page of Google with. Maybe the term “how to sell SEO“? Oh yeah, but I am already ranked in the top two for that search, and it has nothing to do with spamming people. I am already there for about a squillion competitive industry terms. I mean, it is what I do professionally. Maybe they can get me on the Google home page just under the logo … how much does that cost?

What really drives me nuts about this is that although it separates the good SEO and bad SEO, it still gives a lot of companies a real reason to hate people in my industry. It makes it even harder to overcome that disgusting image of some fat un-bathed guy in a pair of filthy nylon boxers sending out email and tweeting some crap about his new “earn money fast online” scheme and how he is the real deal and he can make your company successful overnight.

Screw it … I think I’ll go back to bed. My head hurts from thinking about it. If you leave me a comment, that is fine, but I am not buying any damn SEO or molds, so put it out of your mind right now!

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Turning Away Business as a Useful Business Tactic

Turning away business from a customer with a fist full of money and a desire to buy what you sell may seem like a bad business tactic. For many people, turning away a customer is viewed as a tragedy, but in some cases it can produce great benefit. In fact, there are many instances where this tactic can be extremely profitable. I know, it sounds crazy, but let me explain. First, I want to be clear that this is a tactic versus strategy, so don’t start trying to make a bunch of money turning people away just yet.

Examine, for a moment, a couple of reasons it can be important to turn away business, and how it may benefit your business to do so. Face it, not all customers are great customers. There are bad customers in every business … yes, I said every business. Even if you own a coin operated vending machine company and never have to face the customer, there is such a thing as a bad one. There are ways to turn away business that are tactful and useful, and sometimes we just have to learn when it is right to say “no” to the customer.

What brought me to write about this today was that I recently expressed selectiveness to a friend who is in need of marketing services. It is not a matter of arrogance at all, but in my line of work, there are very good reasons I absolutely must turn away business. I only have a limited amount of time to render my services, and if I am spending time working with people who do not pay well, have a bad product offering, or are difficult to work with, I may as well stay in bed. Working with a client for the money alone would be miserable to me, and likely to them as well. Mine is an extreme case, but in every service industry role where time, creativity, and knowledge are the product, it is very important to seek the right customers and stop wasting time with the ones who hold us back. Turning away business can be a painful transition for those unfamiliar with the concept, but it can save a lot of grief.

Opportunity Cost
(economics) The cost of an opportunity forgone (and the loss of the benefits that could be received from that opportunity); the most valuable forgone alternative.

When you are striving to be profitable, you must consider opportunity cost. That is the cost of opportunities that you will miss by taking on each customer. Any time you take on a new customer, there is a loss of potential opportunities elsewhere that could slip by because you are too busy.

In good and proper business transactions we can see that the customer is just as fortunate to make a purchase as the seller is to sell their product or service. If you focus on a better value proposition, competition really does not affect you as much. I have created many instances where a client raises their prices because their offering is worth more than they realized, and they were able to qualify it in their marketing message and quantify it in their business volume. This is the way it is supposed to be, after all. If somebody is willing to trade their hard-earned dollars, the seller clearly has something they want or need. If it is something with a limited supply and a sufficient demand, turning away business is sometimes not just the best option, but rather the only option. That is basic supply and demand, but there are still other reasons to turn away business.

The Arrogance of Purchasers

As purchasers, we often do not see things clearly and we become arrogant with our spending. There is always somebody else out there willing to sell things as if they are a commodity even when they are not. These sellers will offer something that is inferior, and price it low enough to capture the business of those who cannot understand the value difference. What this seller often misses out on is longevity and sustainable profitability. They do not understand the notion of turning away business for any reason, and the value it represents. This sort of selling as a commodity affects most businesses at some point (either internally or externally), and it is important to address it in your marketplace. In service industries, especially, it is a tragic end for many companies to fall into the trap of selling as if they are a commodity just to keep doing business … profitable or not.

Commodity
A commodity is a good for which there is demand, but which is supplied without qualitative differentiation across a market. It is fungible, i.e. the same no matter who produces it.

A valuable lesson for both buyers and sellers is to recognize when something is not a commodity. Seeking qualitative differences is important to good purchasing, and conveying these differences is an essential of good marketing.

Overcoming Commodity Selling

I write what I know, so I am using examples from experience in my own companies to illustrate my point. Perhaps if you see that I live by my own advice, you can at least view it as sincere. When I consider people selling something as a commodity that is indeed not a commodity, it is easy to find examples. Let’s take web hosting as an example (the service that keeps websites up and running). I have been in the web hosting business as a wholesale web host selling to hosting resellers for a decade. Is it the same thing anywhere you go? Well, without a long drawn out explanation, I can say that it clearly is not a commodity. My company’s web hosting prices reflect the millions of dollars invested in higher quality equipment and network architecture that sets us apart. We turn away a lot of business, and thank goodness, because it allows us to keep the quality standards extremely high for the customers who want something better.

Is SEO a Commodity?

Another absolute case of a non-commodity that is often sold as such is marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) services. I see people every day who sell dreadfully ineffective but cheap marketing and SEO services. Tragically, I find many people in the marketing and SEO field who will drop their prices to try and compete as if they offer a commodity. In my line of work as a marketing consultant and enterprise SEO, it is pretty clear to me that my clients receive more quantitative benefit from the transaction than I do. Maybe you have a similar case of providing great value as well, and if so, it is best to recognize it. Sure, I get to earn a good living, but the dollars the client gets in return far exceed what I am paid. It kind of makes me like a money duplicating machine to clients. Would it make sense for me to take on every project that comes my way? Of course not, and especially considering that much of my profit is derived from performance-based contingency SEO. So I refuse to sell it as a commodity, which is why I turn down the vast majority of potential clients who approach me. It is stupid? Some may say “yes”, but my clients are fortunate for it, and my reputation has become valuable because of this.

Do You Want Cake or Do You Want Cake?

I also see the benefit to turning away business very clearly in another of the companies my wife and I own and operate, in the cake and confectionery business. It is a very busy time of year for cakes. There are a lot of weddings, anniversaries, and graduations this time of year, in addition to the constant baby showers, birthdays, company parties, and etcetera. Designer wedding cakes and custom gourmet cupcakes require a lot of time, creativity, and skill. If we tried to take on every customer, it would degrade the product for all customers. So we turn away business to keep quality standards high. This makes it better for business on both sides, the customer and the company.

If you are not selling a commodity, it is unwise to try and compete as if you do. There will always be somebody willing to cut their own business throat to beat you out of a sale just to drive revenue. Discovering and conveying your value proposition is essential. Sometimes that means that you will need to start turning away business.

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