THINKing

Show Up For Success

Your minister of the church of marketing has some words for you to ponder today: if you want to succeed you must show up. Woody Allen has often been quoted - incorrectly - on this subject. What he really said was, “80 percent of success is showing up.”

He was not talking about making a cameo appearance or a movie walk-on. He was suggesting that being there fully focused, giving your best effort and doing it on a consistent basis is the formula for success. Allen knows that most people just try to phone it in. And even then they don’t follow through every time, nor give it their all.

Friend Brent Dees says it another way during his Focus Four business coaching sessions. “Do what you say you’re going to do and do it on time. This applies to everything you do in life, from being an employee, a father, a business owner or a friend.”

Let’s consider it from a marketing perspective. I have written and distributed my e-newsletter monthly since April 2002. That’s 95 issues and counting.

Every month, rain or shine, I worry about what to say that will most help my readers in their businesses. Researching the subject and the links follows. Then, writing, editing and newsletter layout come next. Finally, I distribute it and then respond to any reader questions or requests. It takes roughly eight to 10 hours of my time each month and that is really cutting into my naps.

Do I ever want to take a break? Silly question. But the newsletter has long been my primary awareness vehicle. Every piece of business I landed for my first 6 years in business can be traced back to the newsletter in some way. Consistently getting it out at the same time each month has paid off for me.I think about what the president of window blind giant Levolor once said to me, “we can’t afford to do everything from a marketing perspective. But what we do, we can execute violently.”

The bottom line here is this: pick a few things and execute them to the best of your ability on a consistent basis. That’s showing up. Do that and 80 percent of success is yours. We’ll discuss the other 20 percent later. But right now, I need a nap.

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Top Content

In case you missed some of our posts, here are the top five read of all time:

Twittering Journalists

Top 10 Story Starters For Blocked Bloggers

Newspapers: Dig The Grave 

When Billboards Go Bad

It’s The Relationship, Stupid

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Hidden Gems

OK, I’ll admit it: since Labor Day is approaching I’m taking the lazy way out today and dredging up some excellent old posts that for some reason didn’t get any traction. Have a great holiday.

Fighting For The Middle Ground

Tell Me A Story

I Spy: Top 7 Links For Online PR Espionage

Customer Diss-Service

Your Personal Brand

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Links 7/20/2009

A detached retina has kept me sidelined for about a week, but the eyesight is getting better. So, here are a few things I’m trying to read with fuzzy vision:

10 Fundamentals of Good Writing -  Why have companies lost their voice? The biggest reason is fear. Good communication can’t thrive where every word is second-guessed and scrubbed of all meaning. We’ve got to get back to good writing, and it’s up to communication executives like you to make it happen.

Twitter Generates $48 Million Monthly In Media Coverage -  What are  Twitter mentions worth? According to news-monitoring service VMS, a cool $48 million over the past 30 days. (That’s half of what Microsoft plans to spend marketing its biggest product launch of the year, Bing.)

Cinnabon Direct Mail. Mmmmmm. - (You have to register to read this).  Bakery chain Cinnabon is one company embracing direct mail over more tech-savvy channels and seeing customer acquisition rise as a result. The days of direct mail’s marketing dominance may be over, but don’t call it dead yet.

Customer Loyalty: How To Earn It. -  THINKing has written about the topic of customer retention often. There’s a saying in the business world: Customer acquisition is an investment, but profitability is built on customer retention. And with the economy in its current state, it’s more important than ever to keep the customers you have.

MasterCard Launches “Priceless” iPhone App - The Purchase, N.Y.-based company is introducing the “Priceless Picks” app, which gives consumers a location-based utility to find and share their favorite picks with others. Via the iPhone’s GPS technology, users can find shopping deals, entertainment options and dining venues based on the users’ current location or where they are going.  MasterCard is extending its “Priceless” catchphrase to a new iPhone application.

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Get Active

My lovely bride and mystery novelist par excellence, Terry Hoover, is the queen of the vivid verb. Read the first chapter of her book, Double Dead, to see what I mean.

This is one of the hardest things for most writers to get a handle on. Many writers tell their stories passively, and that puts readers to sleep. They don’t use active voice to move the story along. They do this because they think it makes them sound smarter. Au contraire.

I was in radio news years ago, and that probably helped me avoid most of the passive voice problems. Radio requires you to be conversational and passive voice is far from conversational.

Let’s look at a few examples of active and passive voice.

Which is better in your opinion: the boy was bitten by the dog or the dog bit the boy. I’ve got to go with active: the dog bit the boy. Here are some more examples at the Purdue University online writing lab.

So, remember, to liven up your writing, get active.

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Links - 9/25/2008

Greetings, THINKers. I’ve been on the road this week and have not had time to blog, but I have had time to read. Here are a few things in which you might have interest:

Putting Social Media In The Newsroom

How To Say Nothing In 500 Words

The Truth About Creating A High Traffic Blog

How To Avoid Being A Bozo When Presenting

Global Brands Adapt To Meet Changing Economic Challenges

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Links - 9/19/2008

Photo Courtesy of Morguefile

How To Grow Your Personal Brand (Happy Blog Birthday, Jason)

Where To Find PR Help In The Web 2.0 World

What We Can Learn From EMail Spammers

13 Ways To Promote Your Next Blog Post

From THINKing’s Dusty Archives:

- Top 10 Story Starters For Blocked Bloggers

- Great Employees = Happy Consumers

- RSS 101 - 16 Links To Get You Started

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Links - 8/29/2008

From Cision’s Navigator enewsletter Media Update Column:
General News Category
Lifestyle/Entertainment Category
Business/Financial Category

Summer Blues For News

The Secret To WOM Marketing

The Future Of Social Media

From THINKing’s Dusty Archives:
Tell Me A Story
Tell Me A Story About Me
Brand Euthanasia

Web News Aggregators

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Tell Me A Story About Me

Marketers know that a story is a good way to engage prospects. But too often the marketer wants to tell a self-serving story about the company instead of about how the company helps the prospect or customer. Chest-thumping puffery does not sell. Tell me about how you can make me more money, save me some time, provide me work/life balance and I’m listening and more likely to ring the register. Otherwise, save your time and money because I just tuned out.

Do you know why people buy your product? I often do customer interview projects for clients to help them uncover the reasons people buy from them. This is the best way that I have found to learn what motivates your customers.

But Author Geoff Ayling’s book Rapid Response Advertising provides an excellent list of 51 reasons why people buy. Let’s review a few and maybe you’ll see some that resonate with you:

1. To make more money

2. To save money – this is the most important reason to 14% of the population

3. To attract praise

4. To increase enjoyment

5. To possess things of beauty

6. To avoid criticism

7. To make their work easier

8. To speed up their work

9. To keep up with the Joneses

10. To feel opulent

11. To look younger

12. To become more efficient

13. To buy friendship

14. To avoid effort

15. To escape or avoid pain

16. To communicate better

17. To be in style

18. To avoid trouble

19. To protect their family

20. To express love

Why do you buy?

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Tell Me A Story

Since the dawn of time mankind has been a sucker for a story. We may be wearing synthetics now instead of skins, but that one truth has not changed. Whether you are communicating with employees, customers or the media, a story has the most power.

I read a piece in Bull Dog Reporter not too long ago quoting Wall Street Journal Reporter Don Clark on the power of narrative to break through the media wall. Here is an excerpt from the article:

Know what constitutes a front-page piece—tell a story. “We’re not just looking for announcements,” says Clark. “We’re looking for great story elements. That’s how we work. For example, your story should include a level of drama—like a guy so upset with his company stock that he flew a plane into a mountain. But drama is just one element.” Some others:

Narrative: “What people want to read now is some narrative and a story line. For example, we tell stories through characters and people—not products,” Clark shares. “A good illustration would be somebody saying their plan worked just like they thought it would. Well, that’s not a story. We want things that are unexpected. We want to hear the stumbles, the roadblocks and the bad luck—then the good news at the end. But PR people always start with the good news.”

Conflict: “Similarly, journalists are interested in conflict,” Clark says. “For example, companies suing each other has plenty of tension. A lot of people want to say they have no competition. But that’s a great way not to get written about.”

Now, how can you incorporate storytelling into your organization’s publicity efforts? Just like Stephen King does. Start with the hero in his everyday, believable world. Then, take him on a journey into an unbelievable world. The hero completes his journey, returning to the old world inextricably changed. You also need a universal theme or a unique point of view that propels the story forward, like “good triumphs over evil,” or “the small outfoxes the large opponent.”

Next, remember the idea is not to sell the audience something, it is to engage them.

So, what’s your story? Weave one of your own to break through the clutter.

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