When you make stuff other people want to share. My friend snapped a photo of our LeaderSkilz video being used in a training session at Walmart. The LeaderSkilz phenomenon continues to amaze me.
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This is a short excerpt from the book Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. If you haven’t read it yet, you need to. These guys represent the new order of business (another post about that here). Things have changed and listening to their advice will help you stay on point for what’s ahead.
This particular idea is something I’ve been living and preaching for the past couple of years. Some people get it and agree, others are completely against it. What do you think?
You can advertise. You can hire salespeople. You can sponsor events. But your competitors are doing the same things. How does that help you stand out?
Instead of trying to outspend, outsell, or outsponsor competitors, try to out-teach them. Teaching probably isn’t something your competitors are even thinking about. Most businesses focus on selling or servicing, but teaching never even occurs to them.
Teach and you’ll form a bond you just don’t get from traditional marketing tactics. Buying people’s attention with a magazine or online banner ad is one thing. Earning their loyalty by teaching them forms a whole different connection. They’ll trust you more. They’ll respect you more. Even if they don’t use your product, they can still be your fans. Teaching is something individuals and small companies can do that bigger competitors can’t. Big companies can afford a Super Bowl ad; you can’t. But you can afford to teach, and that’s something they’ll never do, because big companies are obsessed with secrecy. Everything at those places has to get filtered through a lawyer and go through layers of red tape. Teaching is your chance to outmaneuver them.
How? By educating people.
Clients who receive the gift of education are 29 times more likely to buy your products than those who respond to media ads. – American Marketing Association
29 times! That’s crazy.
With those kinds of results, you should be working on this right now. If you’ve been toying with the idea of buying some ads or you’re already spending a bunch of money on ads, stop! Try writing an ebook or make a short educational video or start a blog. It’s free and apparently it’s 29 times better than advertising.
Disclaimer: “Education” does not mean educating people about your stuff. It bugs the heck out of me when people say, “We just have to educate customers about what we do. Then they’ll buy!” News-flash: People don’t care about you or your products. People care about themselves and their problems. They want you to make their life easier.
Give people free content that enlightens them, teaches them something new, or adds value to their work.
Don’t try to sell everything. Sell the stuff that really drives your economic engine. Give everything else away.
The New Rules of Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott is a great book about…yes, you guessed it, the new rules of marketing and PR. It’s so good that I made it required reading for a social media seminar I taught last week. Many of the seminar attendees (MBA students) told me that the book really opened their eyes and challenged them to think about marketing differently. The book does a great job of explaining how the web has fundamentally changed the rules of marketing. David not only explains how it’s changed, but he provides a ton of great ideas on how to do something with this information once you put the book down. I highlighted a bunch of stuff in the book as I was reading it. Here are some of the best ideas (in my opinion):
Think Like a Publisher
The new publishing model on the Web is not about hype and spin and messages. It is about delivering content when and where it is needed and, in the process, branding you or your organization as a leader.
What works is a focus on your buyers and their problems. What fails is an egocentric display of your products and services.
Know the Goals and Let Content Drive Action
Ultimately, when marketers focus on the same goals as the rest of the organization, we develop marketing programs that really deliver action and begin to contribute to the bottom line and command respect. Rather than meeting rolled eyes and snide comments about marketing as simply the “T-shirt department,” we’re seen as part of a strategic unit that contributes to reaching the organization’s goals.
Content and Thought Leadership
Content brands an organization as a thought leader. [Content] tells the world that you are smart, that you understand the market very well, and that you might be a person or organization that would be valuable to do business with.
Blogging
Just like the hand-wringing over personal computers entering the workplace in the 1980s, and also echoing the Web and e-mail debates of the 1990s, company executives seem to be getting their collective knickers in a twist about blogs these days. This debate should be centered on people, not technology…attempting to block the technology isn’t the answer.
Too often, corporate communications people at large companies distance themselves from what’s going on in the real world of blogs, YouTube, and chat rooms. But it’s even worse when they try to control the messages in ways that the marketplace sees as inauthentic.
The Content-Rich Web Site
Great content is the most important aspect of any Web site.
Unfortunately, in many organizations these other concerns dominate. Why is that? I think it’s easier to focus on a site’s design or technology than on its content.
The best Web sites focus primarily on content to pull together their various buyers, marketing, media, and products in one comprehensive place where content is not only king, but president and Pope as well.
Don’t be fooled into thinking social media is the answer to your marketing problems.
Social media is a communication tool. That’s it.
Communication is nothing new. People have been communicating since the beginning of time. Only now instead of drawing pictures on rock walls, we type words into Twitter or Facebook.
Remarkable stuff is what matters.
If you don’t make or provide great stuff, no one will care about you. It doesn’t matter how much or how often you tweet, facebook, or spam, if you don’t have something remarkable to point people to, you are wasting your time.
I had coffee with a friend the other day who is a brilliant strategist and marketer. He’s doing a lot of social media consulting these days. He said that if a client wants to get into social media and they don’t have a truly remarkable product, the conversation about social media ends there. It’s futile. Social media doesn’t matter because no one is going to talk about your product or service if it’s not truly REmarkable (worthy of making a remark about).
So just make great stuff, or as Nick Campbell would say, “Make Cool Shit“
Great article from Ad Age. Thanks to Jacob for finding it!
In particular, the following snippet really captures where things are headed:
“Modern digital marketers have recognized that in terms of the consumer, the center is everywhere. As a result, digital content is now designed to be syndicated, reskinned and reformatted while still remaining relevant. This evolution is pushing advertisers away from building million-dollar microsites and toward smart, tactical ideas that revolve around specific needs or even communities.”
You can read the full article here:
Take one hour out of your life to watch this. You will be glad you did.
I recently purchased a 1976 MG Midget Convertible. I needed a car to get me around town since I’m changing jobs and no longer have a company vehicle. My search narrowed down to two choices. A 1991 Acura Legend and the MG Midget. Both were in decent shape, both cost less than $2,000, both got good gas mileage, and both accomplished the same basic need of transportation.
The difference is that the MG gets noticed. And that’s where the marketing lesson comes in.
Since I purchased the MG, I’ve driven it around town several times and observed reactions when people see it. Some people almost get a crick in their neck watching it drive by. Others give it a quick glance and go on their way. Some barely notice it at all. But almost everyone at least acknowledges the uniqueness of this car among the hundreds they see everyday.
So, what can the MG teach us about effective marketing?
• Effective marketing doesn’t have to be over-the-top extreme, it just needs to differentiate you from the pack. Sure, a hot pink monster truck would get even more attention than the MG, but at the expense of reputation, tact, and cost.
• Marketing should be unconventional, just like my decision to buy the MG. Most people would never even consider buying a 33 year old car, yet its age is one of the things that makes it all the more interesting. People just don’t see cars like this very often. The Acura was conventional and expected.
• It should tell a good story. When people hear about or see the MG, they want to know more about it. What does MG stand for? Where did you find it? Why does it have three windshield wipers?
• It doesn’t have to cost a fortune.
• It should be talkable and easily spread by word of mouth. People have been talking about the MG before they even see it. It has created quite a bit of anticipation and interest.
• The name you choose should be catchy and memorable. “MG Midget” is just fun to say. And you remember it because the name relates directly to the main characteristic of the car, it’s size.
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