Warady's Riffs, Raves and Rants on Marketing

You know how I love the concept of niche businesses, right? Find an under-served market that has a need, create a product that fills that need, and then build a brand around the product. If the market truly exists, the brand should do well. If the market exists and growing as well, the product and the brand should do great.

It's Christmas But...

(inside)
It won't be the same this year,
or next year, or the one after that
because you aren't here.

Merry Christmas

You're Better Off...

(inside)
Than that idiot Bernie Madoff.
At least you're not sentenced to 150 years!
For that we say, three cheers!

We can't wait until your release.

Gotta love niche opportunities.

One of the common themes that I share with people when I am asked speak at events is that as brand owners, we do not own our brand. The consumer owns our brand. I maintain that it does not matter so much how we position our brand, it is how the customer positions the brand in their mind, and what they share about our brand with others.

The way that we connect, the way we share messages, the way we tell stories, the way we share content, the way we interact with one another, and the way in which we learn, is all changing so rapidly. Right before our eyes

You've heard me say that marketing boils down to simply telling a story, and telling it well. Sometimes, it is not the words that tell the story, but the package itself, or the business itself.

In today's connected world, where most most companies are asking their Marketing Departments to figure out how to better utilize social media to spread their brand, isn't it interesting when companies do things that can be seen as self-destructive?

It is still common practice that many retailers do not allow photography in their stores. Most recently, although this has happened to me multiple times, I took my iPhone out and took a photo in a Whole Foods store. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that within 90 seconds, two, not one but two Whole Foods employees swarmed down on me like members of an elite anti-terrorist force, asking me if I had just taken a photo in their store. In my mind (here is where the exaggeration DOES come in), here is how the conversation went:

Marketing boils down to one simple request that we first learned to ask for as a child. "Please tell me a story."

That is the essence of marketing; telling a story; one that is memorable, compelling, evocative, emotional and results in the consumer thinking, "I really want to have that product or service."

It’s really important that we understand customer expectations, and then do our best to meet them.

This has always intrigued me. When you stay in a hotel, and you check out the bathroom after you first enter your assigned room, most hotels provide you with simple amenities like soap, shampoo, body lotion, etc. We have come to expect this; it is simply built into the cost of the room. However, to save money, a lot of the hotels are no longer providing refills each night, even if you use a bottle of shampoo, or open the bar of soap.

When this occurs, the customer is annoyed, and while they can call housekeeping to have refills brought up to them, why make the customer go through this ordeal. How much money can the hotel be saving? Maybe $2.50 a night, and that is extreme.

I know, sometimes the guests are removing the bottles to take them home with them for their own use. Okay, if the hotel has spent the money to have its own brand placed on the amenities, shouldn’t they want their guests to take them home with them after their stay? Shouldn’t they want their brand emblazoned in the bathrooms of people throughout the world, reminding them of the great stay they had at their hotel?

Isn’t it worth $2.50 per night for 4 nights to have multiple brand impressions that last days if not years after the initial experience? Isn’t it worth $2.50 per night to meet the customer’s expectations, because they expect replenishment?

Sometimes businesses make crazy decisions, and then they wonder why revenues are down. 

Just some thoughts on what one needs to do to be a great marketer, based on my personal experiences...

10. Watch television shows that you might not normally watch. Understand what is popular culture today and why, and try to identify the trends.

9. Read magazines like People, US, Entertainment Weekly, Hello, and gain a better understanding as to who’s hot in Hollywood, in reality shows, in music. If you read the magazines and don’t know who the people are, all the more reason you should keep reading the publications.

8. Eat at one new restaurant, at least twice per month. What’s on their menu? How is the wait staff dressed? What typestyle do they use on their printed material. What colors are they using? You can learn a lot from observing the restaurant industry.

7. Offer yourself up as a speaker or presenter at high school and college events. But it isn’t about you speaking, it is about you listening. Ask these young people what’s on their mind. Ask them what they think about the world around them, and what are the topics they care most about. Ask them what and who they think is hot. Many times it will be different than what you just read in the magazines.

6. If you are a man, spend an hour in a woman’s store and watch how women shop. If you’re a woman, do the same in a men’s store. See what they buy, and how they buy it.

5. Plan a vacation to somewhere you have never been. It always intrigues me that we go through life once, and people find a vacation spot that they like, and return year after year. What about the rest of the world; no interest?

4. Visit a new website every day. And if you can’t find the time, do it at least 3 times per week. See what else is out there. New websites are launched daily, yet we continue to use the same sites with which we are comfortable.

3. Observe and document. Look at things you see on the street, while you are waiting for a train, while driving in the car, while riding your bike, while walking your dog. Look at the way people communicate, signage, sides of trucks, leaflets posted to light poles. What do you see? What ideas do you get?

2. Try new foods. Walk into a gourmet store, or a high-end supermarket, and pick up foods that are exotic to you. Try new fruits and vegetables you have never tasted. Pick up a condiment or spice from a foreign country. Ask the employees what they like that is new and exciting.

And the #1 recommendation to help you become a great marketer….

1. Never stop being inquisitive. Talk to people you have never met before, and ask questions. Where they are from, what they like, what they are interested in, what excites them. People love to talk about themselves; let them. They will teach us. They will enlighten us.

We can learn so much just by living an interested and inquisitive life.

When I speak to corporate audiences about business growth, one of the tenets that I share with them is to “Think Globally, Act Locally”.

In essence, companies need to always be thinking big and into the future, and they need to make sure that their business is scalable, and can grow globally. While that may never be the case, it is important to plan early as to how your business my one day become a global concern. Think of Facebook starting on the campus of Harvard University as an exclusive site to that campus, and now has members in over 150 countries around the world.

At the same time, it is important to act locally. While your business may grow global in nature, and you start to gain customers or clients from international locations, it is important that the customers from other countries relate to you in their customs and their language. It is not enough to simply say you are willing to ship around the world, or willing to do business remotely; you must be willing to adapt to the local culture if the business is truly going to grow.

McDonalds has always been a great example of a company that gets this concept. While their restaurants might all look the same throughout the world, their menus vary based on the tastes of the local culture wherever the McDonalds might be located. Sure, they are McDonalds, you might say. And they have the money to do this. But in fact, the larger the company, the more difficult it is due to the fact that there are so many practices that need to be altered every time a local McDonalds region wants to make a change in the menu.

I’m on vacation this week and I find myself in Nova Scotia, about 3 hours north of Halifax. It’s a new place for me, and I have to say it is simply beautiful I needed an Internet fix; so after driving an hour, found a McDonalds offering free WiFi. More interestingly, there was a sign announcing that it was McLobster time, and for a limited time, the McLobster sandwich was now available. After talking to the manager, I discovered that this is a sandwich that is exclusive to the “Maritime McDonalds” and once in awhile is also found in the US Northeast.

How’s that for thinking locally…a sandwich that is developed and sold solely for the east coast of Canada. A great example of a global company thinking locally.

A couple of photos are included. Excuse my unshaven look; it’s a vacation!

If you provide your customers with great service, and great services, they will come back to you again and again. 

Compare that to the flight that I took a couple of days ago on Air Canada. Sitting in Economy, every seat-back had the following: