Warady's Riffs, Raves and Rants on Marketing

In the past, I have discussed how important it is to say Thank-you. Whether the gratitude is directed to your customers, your clients, your co-workers, your friends, or a stranger sitting next to you, saying Thank-you goes a long way towards building a relationship, and building trust. All the social media tools in the world won't mean a thing if people aren't willing to say Thanks!

If a customer is unhappy, if a client thinks we have let them down, if we have wronged a co-worker, or hurt a friend's feelings, or simply treated a stranger poorly, saying I'm Sorry with conviction is another great relationship builder. 

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know there are times when I am presented with a new product or service, and I find myself questioning whether the idea is genius, or simply crazy.

Have you seen The Racktrap? It is described as "an undetectable personal bra pocket that holds everyday essentials including cash, credit cards, and drivers license conveniently in your bra". You can purchase it as a single unit, or a set of 4 (I have to re-read my anatomy books. Why would you need 4?)

1. Locate your breasts. (ummmm, they were here a minute ago.)

2. Decide what breast is most accessible. (how can one be more accessible than the other? What am I missing? I'm so bad at this.)

A hard thing to do is to ask people to honestly share with you their opinion of your skills.

Aren't you getting tired of people calling themselves Social Media experts!

First of all, the concept of Social Media, and the accompanying technologies and platforms, are all relatively new. Anyone who claims that they are an expert simply is over-stating their experience. They might know a lot about Social Media, but no one is really an expert. You read articles all of the time as to how marketers are still trying to figure how Social Media fits into the overall integrated marketing strategy. The key phrase here is "trying to figure it out." We all are.  None of us are "experts". Some of us simply get it more than others.

Did you watch the Tony Awards last night?

Marketing

No matter how well known your brand might be, you should never stop marketing. And if brand recognition starts to drop off, you need to market in new ways and new channels. Case in point is Neil Patrick Harris. He did a great job as host of the Tonys, but more important is to think about where his career had been, and where it is today.

Neil (can I call him Neil or do I have to say Neil Patrick), for us "older" folk, will always be Doogie Howser M.D.. He was a young teen actor in a major network weekly show, playing a young teen medical doctor who had a genius IQ. The problem was, after the show ended in 1993, he had been typecast. Sure, he would appear in single episodes of other shows as a character actor, or he did voice work for animated series, but he wasn't gaining any traction. The NPH brand wasn't selling. So he looked at the potential target markets, figured out that his old fans weren't buying, and he decided he needed to introduce his product to a new target market. 

In 2004 he appeared in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. By no means a classic, but who am I to judge. In the film, Harris mocked himself, and his Doogie role. In my opinion, it is no coincidence that in 2005 he became the star of How I Met Your Mother, a sitcom still on the air today. 

Nice job of rebranding. From Harold & Kumar, to host of the Tony Awards, in 5 short years. Amazing!

Gratitude

I'm big on saying thank-you. I think there is nothing worse than having people do things for you, and then not thanking them. It can be a simple email, a note, a call, an instant message, it doesn't matter. Thank-yous are meaningful, and people appreciate them.

I also believe that you have to thank your customers, your clients, your employees, your employer, your network. Just say thanks. People appreciate it. Sometimes it is great to show gratitude for not particular reason simply because it indicates that you appreciate the people around you.

Angela Lansbury is going to be 84 years old this year, and last night she won a Tony, her fifth. With the poise of a star who has had a long career, she showed heartfelt gratitude to her fans, her fellow actors in her current play, and most importantly to the theater community for allowing her to work at her age. Out of all of the speeches, hers was the most heartfelt. You truly believed that she appreciated everything about her career, and the fact that she hasn't been forgotten.

When was the last time you thanked someone with that type of heartfelt appreciation? I think it makes both parties (you and the thankee) feel great.

Accepting Change

Jane Fonda is 71 years old. She has had an interesting career. An actress, a political activist, a fitness expert, a wife of a billionaire, and now back to acting again. Love her or dislike her, she has been around a long  time and manages to remain in the public eye.

Last night at the Tonys, she was updating her Twitter feed live, from her seat. In addition, she was uploading backstage photos to Twitpics. Talk about willing to accept change!

Fonda, at age 71, is doing things that we can't seem to get our clients to do because they find it too difficult. She isn't asking if Twitter is going to be around in five years. She isn't questioning their business model. She has realized that if she wants to continue growing "Brand Fonda", she has to connect with a new market, and she is using her Twitter feed and her website to do just that.

I give her a lot of credit. By the way, her Tweets were pretty insightful, and personal. They allowed us to see into her head, which is the best type of brand transparency. Nice job!

Final Thoughts

Broadway continues to struggle during this economy. Ticket prices are high, and the number of tourists visiting New York is down substantially. If I were a Broadway producer, or theater owner, I would allow people to sign up to follow a Twitter feed for the show in my theater, and beginning 15 minutes before the curtain goes up, I'd start to Tweet about how many seats I had left for that evening's shows, and start to sell seats at a discount. Once that curtain goes up, and the seat is empty, that's it. You'll never get revenue for that seat, that evening. Aren't you better off filling that seat with a body willing to pay? What if someone waited until the last minute, and was willing to pay $25. Should you take it? It will go right to the bottom line, right?

How can that same concept work for your business?

Wow! I never thought I could ramble on so long about the Tony Awards and Broadway. I must be getting really sophisticated and cultured. But I have to run. I have to rent Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay.

• You post on a blog
• You tweet on Twitter
• You update your status on Facebook
• You upload your video on YouTube
• You post on someone else's Facebook wall

• Don't stop thinking.
• Don't stop writing.
• Don't stop creating.
• Don't stop sharing.
• Don't stop projecting.
• Don't stop talking.

People really do care to hear what you have to say. I promise! You may sit and wonder if all of your hard work to be interesting is worth it. You may wonder if anyone is listening.

Last week while in Amsterdam, I was involved in a conversation with some European business executives and we were discussing various business topics, including the fact that people in their twenties and early-thirties tend to change jobs more often than we did when we were their age. Surprising to my colleagues, I defended the phenomenon, and explained that it did not have to do with the fact that this generation were less career-minded, but in fact it was due to how quickly the world is changing around us. 

In the book, Grown Up Digital, Don Tapscott explains it best when he states that the Net Generation is simply different than previous generations. As he states in this highly recommended book, the NetGens' brains are wired differently than the brains of the previous generations. They work and live at different speeds, able to react to various stimuli at the same time. This allows the NetGens to be able to work on client presentations, while listening to music on their iPod, engaging with their friends in texting conversation, and monitoring their Twitter feed.