online marketing Archives by Mark Murnahan

Pink Slime, Politics, and Marketing: Should You Doubt What You Read?

Who is vetting this Internet and deleting all the misinformation?

Yes, that is a nice idea, but let’s face it – there is a lot of information online, and it cannot all be true. Let’s consider how false information is often deemed true, true information is deemed false, and how people decide for themselves what is “true” or “false”.

Like it or not, the things people believe are often based on what they want to believe – and what others around them believe. We are each influenced very uniquely, and whether marketing an agenda or defending ourselves, it is important to recognize those influences.

Facts are commonly disregarded, in favor of more subjective means of decision making such as societal perception and emotion. Allow me to give you examples.

I recently read an article produced by ABC News about “Pink Slime” being added to ground beef products. It has been in the news a lot, recently. What they call “Pink Slime” is made up of scraps of meat that would be otherwise wasted, but instead are finely ground and processed to be mixed with other ground beef. The beef industry calls it “Lean, Finely Textured Beef” or “LFTB”. It has been used for over 20 years in America’s food supply, but news agencies recently uncovered a great opportunity to make a sensational story.

Questioning Pink Slime and Industry Agendas

Maybe Pink Slime is horrible stuff, and maybe it is not. That’s not the point I am after. Regardless of whether it is good or bad, it brought up some thoughts about people’s system of beliefs and reactions to things they read. On either side of the topic, there are people who will strongly believe in their viewpoint, but the side that many people will believe is the one which creates the stronger emotional draw.

The article was produced by a large news agency, and pretended to be journalistic, but there was a strong slant against the use of beef additives. As I read through the comments, it was obvious how it influenced others. In fact, there were only a few who questioned the source reliability and bias. It emphasized how people react to fact or fiction based on emotion, and in this case the emotion was influenced by presentation.

When something affects people emotionally, and they can personally identify with the topic, they are far more likely to find something believable. If they have a connection of trust with the source, it becomes even more believable. For example, I could probably write a convincing story about green pixie dust, and it would seem a lot more “true” to long-time readers and friends than to people who do not know, like, or respect me. It would be even more believable if I created an emotional attachment and led people to believe there is something important at stake for them.

The topic of Pink Slime has a lot of people up in arms, demanding tighter government regulation of “Lean, Finely Textured Beef”. The comments on the ABC News article expressed anger toward the evil companies using it, and the evil government that had surely been paid off to allow its use. I was a bit surprised nobody claimed it had killed their pet unicorn or had spawned a new sub-species of humans that can only eat through a straw.

The readers responded very emotionally, but only a few pointed out unbiased and unemotional facts about pink slime. That ability to move people away from facts or toward the facts to support a particular viewpoint is how marketing works at its best – and its worst.

In another article on Discovery.com, the concerns of Pink Slime were addressed quite differently – based on the “Ick Factor”. Here is a quote from the article titled “PINK SLIME: PSYCHOLOGY OF THE ICK FACTOR“.

The real problem with pink slime is the “Ick Factor” — it looks and sounds gross.

Part of the psychology behind the Ick Factor is labeling. The language we use when we identify things influences how we interpret them. We can call an old car “used” or “pre-owned;” we can call civilians killed in wartime “men, women, and children” or “regrettable collateral damage.” And we can call processed beef parts “pink slime” or we can call it “boneless lean beef trimmings.”

The article also considered Jell-O, but it seems far fewer people complain about gelatin products. I will give you another quote to consider.

And let’s not forget Jell-O brand gelatin, a favorite dessert since 1897. You can call it Jell-O, or you can call it flavored and colored powdered cow bones, cartilage, and intestines.

The beef industry may point out that meat prices will skyrocket without pink slime. Maybe it is true. Maybe this USDA regulated meat product is safe and nutritious. Maybe it is not. What we can be certain of is that there are multiple agendas involved in its discussion, and the facts will “bend” based on who is presenting them, how they are presented, and to whom.

Once something of this emotionally-charged level of interest is presented, society and its inherent emotion-based process will prevail – one way or the other, and for better or worse.

Do You Ever Question Politics? Let’s Have Some Fun!

Another very easy way to explore this type of emotional “fact-checking” (gut checking) is to look at politics. It is a presidential election year in USA, so politics is on a lot of minds. Let’s consider how we make things feel more believable and “true” based on personal experience, influence from the people around us, and emotional attachments. Make no mistakes about this, because none of us are fully immune.

Many people identify with a given political party based on how they were raised, where they work, where they live, or other societal input. It is very unreliable, but most people have a hard time accepting that they may be getting the wrong story – or at least a story very tainted with emotion.

With regard to politics, once people choose their political party, they will often remain influenced by that group and will base their views on the group’s influence.

Let’s have some fun examining the two popular political parties in America, and how people of one political party may view the other. Let’s also consider how rigid people are in their beliefs and unlikely – or even incapable – to acknowledge varying viewpoints with flexibility and fairness.

Democrats Defined:

Tree-hugging fanatics who hate companies, love abortion, don’t work or work very little, and complain about economy but think the government economy-fairy should keep producing more money. Democrats commonly believe that if the government grows large enough, it will protect us from ourselves, and we can all have public-sector jobs while we let pixies, gnomes, unicorns, and other fantasy taxpayers produce the tax dollars needed to cover our salaries. Democrats are generally poor, because earning money is considered evil and corrupt. They have too many children, and they only vote when republicans are trying to take away their free government cheese. Democrats are likely to be seen protesting against the organization that writes their paycheck (unless it’s the government). They love to protest things whenever they are not busy cleaning up an environmental disaster and wiping the crude oil from little a kitten’s eyes after some idiot republicans decided to drill for oil instead of thinking globally and buying it from those nations we should work harder to get along with. A hug is always the best answer to political or religious unrest, and our enemies would stop plotting to attack America if we just gave more hugs. Oh, and let’s not forget that most democrats are either gay, bisexual, or have some sort of sexual perversion.

Republicans Defined:

Wealthy religious zealots who think women should make babies and stay in the kitchen. They despise the working class, unless it is to manufacture weapons or go fight in the latest war. They pray before they make any policy decisions, and if they pray extra hard, God will make them wealthy enough to control more industries, and countries. They are generally rich, rude, self-centered, and want to control the universe while making slaves of democrats. Republicans enjoy destroying our planet and are likely to be seen driving a Hummer while eating an endangered spotted owl sandwich on their way to the whale hunting expedition where they will crash into an oil tanker and set a glacier on fire, thus producing more global warming and sea level rise. Then they can enslave more democrats to clean it up … they always have a sneaky agenda like that. In fact, it is undoubtedly republicans who came up with the idea for Pink Slime – probably as a way to sneak brain-numbing drugs into our food supply and make us agree with whatever they say. They lie, too … almost always. Regarding their sexuality, it is amazing there are still any republicans left, because according to them, sex is taboo. If they do have sex, there will surely be another republican voter on the way, because they don’t believe in birth control.

I know you nodded your head or identified with something in those stereotypes. I hope you did not identify too perfectly either way, but I’m trying to make a point.

The point is that people think in packs. It is generally true that people make decisions about what they accept as fact, based on the people around them, combined with their own experiences, and their own desire to believe it. The presentation is critical, both in how it is presented and to whom.

Know This About Marketing!

I hope you can see how the ideas here are very important factors in your marketing approach. If you do not reach the right audience and understand how people are influenced, it is easy to waste a lot of marketing resources.

Getting these principles right can create a lot of great business opportunities, but I must caution you to be very careful, too. The knife cuts in both directions. If you are falling prey to the emotional pull of the Internet’s popular notions of getting rich quick and easy with low efforts, it’s time to get a checkup from the neck up. That idea is popular and has a lot of emotional draw, but does it really settle right with you?

I guess you could say I am a bit of a whistle-blower about bad information online. I have explained the common SEO lies and publicly called out social media frauds. I try to encourage critical thinking, but perhaps understanding what leads people to believe something that is otherwise irrational or unbelievable is the best way to keep you safe from misinformation.

Now, please consider how believable something can become if you really want to believe it, and if others around you believe it, too. Then, perhaps the next time somebody tries to sell you their new variety of success in a box or easy-money green pixie dust, you will better understand how they make it so appealing.

Go ahead and tell me what you think about Pink Slime, democrats, republicans, marketing, or whatever this brings to mind for you.

Postscript:

I want to add a timely personal and professional observation.

Even in my present seemingly fact-based search for a new company to work for, these factors I pointed out here play a huge role with both parties. While I search for the perfect company with all the right “facts”, something that means even more is that I will fit well with the team and feel good about my work.

Wise companies understand this, and when they look at my résumé, it is merely a guideline. While my background is in operating and providing consulting services to successful businesses for over twenty years, my decision making comes from understanding people, business, where they intersect, and how the pieces all work together. My salary requirements depend on who I like, and their salary offerings will depend on their like and belief of my ideology, personality, and my specific fit with their people, and their business agenda.

This does not fit into a single sales pitch, and neither do many of the decisions the public will make about your brand, or your products.

These intricacies of people are what creates success at every scale of a business. That is why I expect the right company to invite me for an interview to learn more before making me an offer. Otherwise, they would just blindly email me the job offer based on simple facts. I’m not counting on that, and I don’t believe you should, either.

Build your brand, know who you are addressing, and give them the facts – but never neglect how the real decision making unfolds across a group, and how that group is influenced.

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Ideas to Increase Reader Attention Span and Reduce Your “Yawn Rate”

A thought came to mind today about the frequently very low attention span of Internet users. When they come to your website, you would probably like to fix that. I will share some thoughts and handy tips to help you do just that. First, let’s consider why it is this way, by looking at how we use the Internet, ourselves.

We often must scan through a lot of dis-interesting information in order to find what we seek, so we each do a lot of scanning when we use the Internet. Just considering all the advertisements we dodge on a daily basis, it is amazing that we ever find our way. Then, adding in the huge volume of obviously false, overtly misleading, and downright dishonest drivel, it really has our information filters working overtime.

It makes a lot of sense how we can become excessively dependent on a quick scan-and-click defense of our time. Let’s face it, most of what is on the Internet is worthless, offensive, or irrelevant to any given individual. The majority is just plain boring. Otherwise, we would want to read and fully absorb every link we can get our mouse on. Of course, this is all subject to the perspective of the reader. Even toupee maintenance and Acetaldehyde dehydrogenase will be interesting to somebody. Here comes my first tip: know who that interested “somebody” is. I’ll get back to that.

Once we find what we are looking for, we make a quick jab on the brakes and we slow down enough to try and learn something. What seems obvious, but is easy for many people to overlook, is that this scanning and filtering is not just something we do … our potential customers do it, too. That’s right, they are not so different in this respect, and it is entirely possible that you are not as immediately interesting to them as you could be.

Be More Interesting, to More People, More Often

This is a prominent goal of many marketing efforts, but being more interesting, to more people, more often is easier said than done. It comes with some challenges. If not, more people would drive down the street tossing hundred dollar bills out the window because their marketing made them so filthy stinking happy.

In the Internet marketing field, when somebody just pops in and takes off without reading, we call that scan-and-click ratio a “bounce rate“. I like to call it, a “Yawn Rate” … or the rate at which people encounter a big yawn and dismiss it as useless and boring. It usually happens within only a few seconds.

The “yawn rate” creates a great challenge for online content producers. Whether it is a product description for an ecommerce website, an “about us” page, or a blog article, it is a challenge that must be recognized in order to overcome it. I have some tips that may help, but there is still no perfect answer. If you intend to be astonishingly interesting every time, it will take practice … plus a good amount of magic.

Today, as I often do, I want to offer you some marketing ideas you can put to work immediately.

Sometimes It’s The Timing

Sometimes it is just the timing of your message that fails. Not that you created or released it at the wrong time, but that a reader has discovered it at the wrong time … for them. Maybe it just wasn’t what they needed right then, but maybe they will need it later. Be sure to make it easy and desirable for them to come back later.

It is important to create a welcoming call-to-action to remember you. Maybe they will bookmark your website, maybe they will “Like” your Facebook page, or follow you on Twitter. Be sure you give website visitors good incentive, and a reminder to subscribe for more … later, when they are ready. Something is better than nothing, so give them something … a reason, a reminder, a cue for further action.

If they don’t take action, at least you have tried to help them. It is pretty unlikely for them to go away horribly offended by your effort at continued communications. If so, their neurotic episodes probably extend to other areas of their life, too.

Sometimes It’s The Delivery

This is a tough matter for a lot of people. Most people are only a fraction as good at creating interesting or useful information as they think they are. Before you start feeling defensive about your website, consider asking for advice from others.

Have you ever watched a talent show like American Idol, X Factor, or So You Think You Can Dance? Much like the many humorous failed auditions that make these television shows so interesting, many people with a couple dozen visitors to their website think they have amazing marketing talent, and refuse to accept good advice.

Don’t take it personally if somebody offers you a suggestion. Ian Benardo thought he could sing and dance, so he refused to listen to criticism. Don’t be an Ian Benardo!

If you are willing to face the truth, ask somebody else for their unbiased opinion. Maybe you need to hire it out to a professional (usually the best option), or maybe you don’t. In either case, you should be willing to listen and accept good advice.

Fix Your Yawn Rate With Audio Feedback

This is a favorite, for me, and it is a staple of providing read-worthy information. Knowing the way somebody will read what you have to say can be invaluable. When people read your website, it is like a little voice in their head, silently speaking those words you produced. Shouldn’t you know how that quiet little voice sounds to them?

Reading comprehension is not the same for everybody. There is often a language barrier to overcome, even among readers of the same native language. Something I find helps me a lot is to hear my words in audio. If I don’t have my editor handy to read it aloud, I record it and listen to how it comes across. Many times, I find errors in the flow of material just by reading it aloud, but they come through even clearer when I record and then listen. Try reading your website aloud and pretend you are speaking to the person reading it. Does it sound awkward? Would you still express it the same way verbally, or would it be better to rephrase it?

I have found the value of using a conversational tone to be useful for decades, but it became even more obvious when I started providing all of my blog articles in both text and audio versions. If you try this tip and listen to your words, I think you will agree that it can be very beneficial. I believe it is much better to have somebody else read it to you, and I thank my lucky stars to have an awesome editor, but even if you are self-editing, it is worth the time to hear what you are saying before publishing it.

A Yawning Gator ... Now, That's Interesting!

Don’t Pre-Judge or Dismiss Visual Appeal

I am a word guy, so I sometimes resent the fact that a picture can say things I cannot say. Well, I guess I could say those things, but if a picture is worth a thousand words, as they say, my blogs would be even longer … and that may seem impossible, but it is true.

Visuals count, and as much as I stomp my feet and pout about it, they still have a strong value in making the information you share more interesting. I often consider this one of the hardest parts of producing website content. I guess that is because the words come a lot easier than hunting down a cool graphic to represent those words. It is worth it, and I think of it like setting the tone of that voice I explained. Be creative with this and see what happens. I think you may be surprised how much it can help grab and keep a reader’s attention.

Do You Feel More Interesting Yet?

Far beyond the suggestions I made here, it is critical to understand that everybody is not your best audience. In fact, I highly recommend reading the article titled “Everybody is Not Your Target Market!” to emphasize the point. They will not all love what you are promoting, and some people may even dislike it very much. That’s a good thing, because the ones who do like it will probably like it even more.

You will never get it perfect, and there is always room for improvement. It can take a lot of effort and adjustment to make it optimally effective, but isn’t it worth it? When you get it all just right, you will find that more people will read to the very end … and that’s when they take action on your words. Don’t we all want that?

What do you have to say about this? Do you have suggestions, or did you like my ideas? Please take a moment to express it.

Photo Credits:
Yawn. by Michael Lemmon via Flickr
A Big Yawn by Mark Robinson via Flickr
Yawn by Linda via Flickr

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Great Marketing is Not About You … Hogwash!

I must have heard nearly every conceivable absurd notion a person can come up with when it comes to marketing. There are a lot, and I have heard some really bad ideas about marketing practices. One silly thing I encounter a lot is when people say “It’s not about you.” A few people may really know what others mean when they say this, but I think the majority of people are just giving you hogwash.

It seems to me that this message has been mutated in so many ways that it has actually become a scare tactic against marketing, rather than good advice.

If you hear people say “It’s not about you”, you should never accept that as a reason to hide who you are, what you stand for, and what you are seeking, only to sneak it in once in a while. Tragically, I believe that is the way many people have taken this message, and it is often completely contrary to effective marketing.

Stop Letting Knuckleheads Control Your Marketing Assets

When you think of your social media marketing, and especially blogging, let’s consider some things. It is a whole lot easier to spread a message if it is useful and interesting to others, rather than just a sales pitch. That should be obvious. If you are just telling people how awesome you are without relating it to how it benefits them, your ship is sunk. Nobody wants to hear about that, and nobody wants to talk about that.

It is comparatively easy to spread a genuinely useful message far, and spread it wide. When it is done just right, it can get a lot of people talking about it, and you may even benefit from many other websites linking to it. This is also a primary factor to being listed better in search engines. It works in perfect synergy, and it grows like a downhill snowball. It all looks shiny and grand, right?

Here’s the kicker: When something is implicitly “not about you”, it comes with a big risk of people never knowing you, your brand message, or your call-to-action (what you want for them to do next). Until you show them who you are, and what your call to action includes, it is just guesswork for them, and missed opportunities for business.

If you think that being useful and interesting means you should carefully hide your call-to-action … the thing that actually provides benefit to your business … then why are you doing it at all? Who ever suggested that you should be playing Mother Teresa and Gandhi with your marketing assets? If somebody suggested that, perhaps you should give them a big hearty slap.

Finding Your Marketing Balance

There must be a good balance to your efforts, and in that balance is where much of your success is locked up like Fort Knox.

You can take the approach that those useful things you do on your blog or social networks will make up an overall better presence for your brand, and this is very true. It is a very important principle in online marketing. At the same time, you cannot expect people to go hunting through pages of information just to discover how to pay your company a profit. They won’t do it! No, they really won’t … and the numbers show the truth! This means you must create a good balance, and that balance should include letting them know what it is that keeps you in business so you will be there when they come back for more.

Sure, it is fine to give the whole world a nice pat on the bottom and a kiss on the brow, but if you are doing something valuable for others, you deserve the benefit of growing your business for it.

Where is The Voice of Your Brand?

When it comes to market research and learning who will give your brand a second glance, it is not about your company or yourself. It is about them … your market … the people who will become your loyal customers and brand advocates. With this information, it becomes about you and them, and where the two parties meet in the middle and do business.

Beyond the research, when it comes to building a brand, you would be foolish to invest in the marketing hogwash that “it’s not about you”. Yes, it is about you, but with some checks and balances. The balance comes somewhere between the value you provide, and the value you ask for, so you need to get that part right.

If the people you are reaching are the right audience, they want to hear from you, and they want to know what you’re all about … whether you represent a company or an individual. That sense of “You” is what they connect with, and what gives them the confidence in who they are considering doing business with.

I’ll explain this in real and vivid terms, and I stand behind this. First, I’ll give you a bit of background, and then I’ll explain the direct benefits to you. I hope you can apply this to your business.

I’ve been in marketing my entire adult life. I have provided marketing consulting and training to successful companies when I was as young as 15 years old. I was raised into it by some brilliant parents, and they taught me a lot. They mentored me.

I was actually raised for my job, much like the six year old girl playing piano in the video above was raised to be a concert pianist. I was fed all of the best books about marketing, success, and motivation. I was taken to conferences of all types and sizes. I was hidden behind phone lines and fax machines to work with clients who simply wouldn’t understand it if they knew their new marketing campaign was largely being constructed by a kid.

I was on a stage talking to people about marketing before I was old enough for a driver’s license. Back then, I could barely wait to be 40, so people could take me more seriously. Today, as I approach 40 a couple months away, I question whether that was my best goal. In any case, I suppose that turning 40 with 25 years of marketing experience and business ownership has its upsides.

I grew up a lot faster than I would ever wish for my children, but I had good mentoring for this career. My parent-mentors trained me to understand how to make something marketable, and how to see markets as systems. That means seeing more than just “the dots”, but rather being able to connect the dots between companies and their consumers. I don’t know why I was raised that way, but my parents had their reasons, and must have seen something in me.

Ten years after I left school at 15, I was able to retire early, as a 25 year old “know-it-all”. Some years later, I went back to work and merged two companies and grew them to the pinnacle of the wholesale Internet services industry. I have also created similar success for clients who had the fortitude and desire to grow their companies, and called me to build and manage their marketing strategies.

That’s a small portion of my career history. I am not ashamed to tell you, nor afraid that it offends you. That does not make me dis-interesting to the right people, and it does not make this all about me, either. If somebody is dis-interested in my career history and qualifications in marketing, they may be the type who will listen to the first slick-talker to tell them what they want to hear. I’m not that guy, and I have a robust brand message that confirms it. I am a guy who strongly understands that it takes willingness to make sacrifices in order to build a successful company … and my clients do, too.

Here’s How You Benefit Knowing This

I offer a lot of reliable information on this blog, the majority of which is based on things I have witnessed in my career. The benefit to you of knowing about my history, who I am, and what I’m about is that you may have more confidence in the things I write. If you have good reasons to trust my integrity, you can see that my efforts are intended to be helpful, and not based on hype.

You can learn a whole lot about my industry, and gain a lot of useful information on this blog … and I provide it for free! If you want the other 99.7 percent, and you want it implemented exceptionally well, I welcome you to contact me to see if we’re a good match. That’s what I’m paid for, and I’m not a bit apprehensive to ask for your business.

Are you ready? If so, click here!

Oh, but there is another point I want to make about one of those early lessons I learned in marketing … just to drive the point home.

The Lessons of Two Ears and One Mouth

Early in my marketing career, I received constant reminders of why I was born with two ears but only one mouth. That is a really tough lesson for most kids to master … and some never do. They explained that it was because I should be listening twice as much as I talk. Of course, a critical part of marketing is to listen to the customers. That’s how you come to understand them, and their desires. It is critical, and it is what market research is for.

I think this is the part where the notion that “it’s not about you” totally confounds a lot of people.

Another lesson I learned that was equally valuable is that when people are considering a purchase, they also appreciate a story of how well the product or service worked for others … or how it could work for them. In order for them to become a customer, they must envision having whatever it is you are offering for sale, and they must envision it with a favorable outcome.

This means, you must be more than just a listener. You also need to know how to tell a story. Sometimes it is a story of a customer, your product, your brand, or your experience, but that’s what people connect with and understand. If you have a story from your experience in business, tell it. Yes, it is about you, and that is a good thing! That is a whole lot better than letting people guess, and it is a lot more genuine than just telling somebody how great your product or service is. That piece of “you” is what becomes valuable … so in this sense, I’d say yes … it is about you!

A question that sticks with me is this: “Would you rather be an interested introvert or an interesting extrovert?” I think we all want to be a little of both, but if you put this in terms of a customer and a seller, I would have to say that I want them to be interested and I want to be interesting. That doesn’t mean turning off the listening, but it does mean you’ve got to do some talking.

People don’t want to hear your hyperbole, but they do want to hear what makes you who you are. If you hide that because somebody told you “it’s not about you”, then you are covering up your best asset. When it comes down to actually doing business, those things about you are what makes up a large portion of their decision.

Just as there are more followers than there are leaders, I believe there are a lot more introverts in the world than there are extroverts. This may be partially because in order to be an extrovert, you put yourself out there on a limb. You are taking a risk to be the one doing the talking. Don’t worry though, because even if you try really hard, you will never make everybody like you … and it is counterproductive to even try.

I say go for it … talk about yourself enough so we can know who you are and what you stand for. If you don’t, all that your would-be customers have to base their buying decisions on is facts and figures. Unless you are the best and the cheapest, all at once, somebody else can nearly always beat you out on at least one of those measures.

That’s my piece. It’s your turn, and it’s all about you, now. Go ahead and add your comments to tell me I’m wrong.

Photo Credit:
Pig by dullhunk via Flickr

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