Marketing & Branding ebooks

My e-books are now available for both Nook and Kindle.

How To Build and Manage Your Brand

For Nook

For Kindle







How to Brand and Market A Commodity

For Nook

For Kindle

Book review: The Book of Business Awesome/UnAwesome

This is an interesting book. Read either the `awesome' half or the `unawesome' side first and then flip the book upside down to read the other half. One half contains stories about brands getting social media right and the other half contains stories about brands really screwing up in their social media communication practices.

Each chapter is very short and reads as a mini-case study. All are anecdotal based on experiences of the author.

As a result, you will get an easy-to-read book that entertainingly covers best and worst practices in using social media as a business marketing tool.

In my mind the most important aspect of the book is the fact that the author reminds the reader that social media are just tools to communicate with audiences. These channels merely and only enable you to communicate with people. Social media channels can only highlight the corporate behavior in which you are already engaged. If you have lousy customer service then social media will just make it more obvious. If you ask for feedback from customers and state that you want to hear from them but then ignore or delete their feedback, it will reflect poorly on you and expose you as being disingenuous or thin-skinned.

The author is really talking about making sure your organization is aligned properly to treat customers the right way. He then shows how some companies are using social media to assist in those efforts. Some get it right, some get it wrong. Some misunderstand how social media works, others understand it and leverage its powers properly, and yet others simply behave terribly in the first place and social media can't fix those fundamental organizational problems. The social media tools, in-and-of themselves, will not change organizational behavior. My favorite sentence in the book is on p. 83 where the author states, "Social media does not make a company good or bad; it just amplifies what they already are."

Often the entire impression people have about your brand is a result of the one or two people who are responsible for posting your public social media messages so the book serves as a warning to make sure you think that through and create social media strategy and guidelines first before you just cut a couple people loose on your social media initiative. After all, those people can ultimately shape the entire impression people have of your brand.

Deliver to go undelivered?

So, when I open up my October issue of Deliver Magazine, the magazine by the United States Postal Service for marketers aimed at boosting direct mail marketing, should I conclude anything from the editor's letter?  You know, the one in which he states that "the time has come for us to take a little break" and "Deliver magazine is going on hiatus?"

Naw.  I'm sure everything at the USPS is just peachy and direct mail is stronger than ever.

It does seem a bit odd, though, that a magazine that aims to boost direct mail marketing would state that while it is ceasing its printed and mailed version that "you'll still be able to find Deliver content online and download back issues."

Move along folks.  Nothing to see here.  Everything is just fine at the U.S. Postal Service.

Dear Volt, Where do I put the batteries?

I'd say that LG Chem has more than a marketing problem.  Those God-awful consumers just don't seem to want to buy enough Chevy Volts to meet sales projections.

Volt no jolt: LG Chem employees idle

Funny thing about politics...

This U.S. election year is interesting.  With Facebook and Twitter being so pervasive,  everyone seems to be speaking their mind on politics in real time.  News flash to those trying to sell me things: I will now go out of my way to make sure I never, ever let my dollars flow toward your products and services.  Did you really mean to cut your audience in half?  See also:

Politicizing your brand? Think twice, please.

Good brand behavior found!

Here is a brand that gets it:

"We owe you a big apology for the intermittent service outages we experienced on September 10 that may have impacted your website, your email and other Go Daddy services.

We let you down and we know it. We take our responsibilities — and the trust you place in us — very seriously. I cannot express how sorry I am to those of you who were inconvenienced.

The service outage was due to a series of internal network events that corrupted router data tables. Once the issues were identified, we took corrective actions to restore services for our customers and GoDaddy.com. We have implemented a series of immediate measures to fix the problem.

At no time was any sensitive customer information, including credit card data, passwords or names and addresses, compromised.

Throughout our history, we have provided 99.999% uptime in our DNS infrastructure. This is the level of performance we expect from ourselves. Monday, we fell short of these expectations. We have learned from this event and will use it to drive improvement in our services.

As a result of this disruption, your account will be credited for the value of 1-month of service for each of your active/published sites.* This credit will be available to you for the next 7 days. Please click the button below to redeem your credit.

It's an honor to serve you. Thank you for the opportunity to re-earn your business and trust.

As always, please call us 24/7 at 1-480-505-8877 — anytime, for any reason.

Sincerely,

Scott Wagner
CEO
GoDaddy.com"

Top Brands of 2012

According to Millward Brown.

http://www.millwardbrown.com/brandz/2012/Documents/2012_BrandZ_Top100_Chart.pdf

Is the Chevy Volt really a car that nobody wants to buy?

THE MADNESS OF THE VOLT:

...." a textbook example of seizing a staggering amount of money from taxpayers, and plowing those resources into an utterly failed attempt to create a “market” for something nobody wants to buy."

The downward spiral of a brand

When you hear gobbledygook like, "[Dell] has transitioned to an 'end-to-end' business IT company in the past five years," you just know a brand is bleeding the equity it once had.We are not just a PC company

U.S. Independence Day

"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it." ~Thomas Paine


"Where liberty dwells, there is my country."  ~Benjamin Franklin


"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." ~Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address, 1863.


"There, I guess King George will be able to read that." ~John Hancock, on signing the American Declaration of Independence.

Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility, or CSR, is not new.  These company behaviors date back to early Capitalism and the two are not mutually exclusive, despite popular political opinion.

http://blogs.hbr.org/video/2012/06/a-brief-history-of-doing-well.html?awid=4929111144116256515-3271

Green ‘drivel’

I think "green" was just handed a major branding problem.
The godfather of global warming lowers the boom on climate change hysteria

Is the thrill of Facebook starting to fade?

 In a Reuters story today, a recent survey revealed that 4 out of 5 Facebook users have never bought a product or service as a result of an ad or comment viewed on Facebook.  Even more discouraging is the fact that while the number of Facebook subscribers might be growing, 34% of those surveyed reported that they are spending less time on the site than they did 6 months ago.

Advertising on the site appears to not be very effective and user engagement is waning.

These are very hard facts and a tough position to be in for a company with an advertising revenue business model.

Facebook stock is down? How predictable.

So after the third day of trading, Facebook is trading for $31/share after an IPO last Friday at $38/share.

If I've got this right, we're talking about social networking company that gets the majority of its revenue from advertisers, that has users who hate ads, and the ad model doesn't really work well on mobile devices anyway...which just happens to be an ever-increasing percentage Facebook total users.

News flash: User growth does not equate to profit growth. I thought we learned this during the dot com bubble of the 1990's.

Just because a social networking site can attract a lot of non-paying users does not mean it creates significant value for anyone. Value exists when people are willing to pay something to get it. How many people would stay on Facebook if they were charged a monthly fee to do so? How many users are willing to click on ads and purchase products so value is created for advertisers?

Until Facebook can figure out a way to create sustainable value for its users and/or advertisers such that people are willing to start engaging in commerce on Facebook in significant ways then it has a faulty business model. Attracting lots of eyeballs never was a business model in and of itself. Money needs to start changing hands.

SEE ALSO: Social media is not a business model.

Last issue of Personal Branding Magazine

Personal Branding Magazine publishes its last issue.

Publisher Dan Schawbel provides no explanation for why the magazine is ceasing publication, but offers it for free.

You don't ultimately define your brand.

You don't ultimately define your brand. Your brand is defined by the people in your market. Branding is about authenticity and respecting your customers so they gladly allow you to have some influence on shaping how they view your brand because they trust you and got more value from you than the investment they made in your brand.

Why marketers should forget trying to message on video

Why Some Ads Go Viral and Others Don't - Video

Ever wonder why some Internet ads go viral while others don't? In this video, Harvard Business School professor Thales Teixeira explain why.

Why Some Ads Go Viral and Others Don't - Video - Harvard Business Review

Image, Response, and Eye Candy: Trade show giveaway strategies

A colleague once asked me if I would suggest or recommend a giveaway or promotional item for his company. His company exhibited at many trade shows throughout the course of the year and he felt a giveaway item, or "tchotchke", would help his booth personnel draw traffic to his company's exhibit booth.

Despite the fact that the age of trade shows seems to be quickly fading, this topic is still often discussed amongst marketers and the thought of giving away a promotional item with a corporate logo or URL in mass quantities is very tempting to many trade show marketers. "What could be better?", they think, than placing the company name or logo in front of many, many people?

I thought I'd share some of my thoughts about promotional items with you that you might find helpful if you are considering incorporating promotional, giveaway items as a part of your trade show marketing efforts. Examine my colleague's logic and see if it sounds familiar to you...

COLLEAGUE'S PERCEPTION:

"I think at shows we need to have freebies or a giveaway item to just get our name out there and get more people stopping by the booth. This may not increase the quality of leads, but it does increase traffic for traffic's sake".

MY THOUGHTS:

Giving away freebies to increase booth traffic just for traffic's sake is foolhardy unless you can give away an item that makes a lasting impression at very low expense. This represents a very big challenge and it might even be an oxymoron. Untargeted promotion is simply a waste of money.

The best "freebies" are those that are targeted toward the right audience, that clearly communicate benefits, and that are just one part in a methodical, brand-building campaign that is reinforced by other marketing communications. Too many companies spend far too much money on expensive giveaway items that have little to no impact. Worse yet, these companies often do not even understand the impact or effectiveness of their giveaway item because they can not or do not measure the campaign in any way.

If you are thinking about using a giveaway item as a trade show marketing tactic, the place to start is with careful consideration of your budget and your goals. Believe it or not, I've seen more than a few trade show giveaway campaigns launched because the boss wanted a golf shirt with the corporate logo on it or because he/she thought all the employees of the company would appreciate a new T-shirt. This should not be the reason you launch such an initiative. Some things that should help define your campaign are:

- Your budget
- Your goal
- The message your giveaway item will communicate
- Your target audience
- The impression you are trying to create

You must ask yourself how much money you can afford to spend and how many impressions you need to make with that budget to achieve your goals. As with any other form of marketing, if you can't measure it then you shouldn't be doing it.

You, wise marketer, know you must work hard to fully understand the economics of the campaign, measure it, and maximize the effectiveness of each and every dollar you invest. You also need to define what you hope to accomplish with your campaign. Will you use the giveaway item to generate tangible sales leads? Will you use the item to reinforce your brand or identity in a complementary fashion to your other marketing communications? Will you use the item to reward your existing prospects and engage them in continuing dialogue?

Let's take a look at some of these strategies a little more closely.

Choosing the item

It is best to have a giveaway item that is somehow related to your business or products -- if at all possible. As examples, carpenters could give away rulers, car dealers - key chains, coffee shops - coffee mugs, etc. The more closely related the item is to your business the better because people make associations in their minds so give them a "hook" to make such an association. If you can't find an item that is somehow related to your business or product, at least make sure the creative aspect of the item conveys a close tie to your business or product.

I have seen or have been involved in successful campaigns that have used letter openers, ice scrapers, lotto scratch-off tools, posters, custom printed logo labels on water bottles, calendar magnets, pens, T-shirts, and coffee mugs. Any of these items, if targeted to the wrong market or with the wrong imprinted message, could just as easily have been losing campaigns. The possibilities when it comes to choosing a promotional item are almost limitless so take some time to explore the options available and choose an item that matches your business.

Image campaign

Some businesses have large budgets they can use to create an item that reinforces an ingrained marketing message or to help project corporate identity. These companies may be able to afford anywhere between $ 5.00 to $50 or higher per item and give the item away in an uncontrolled manner to anyone who walks by their exhibit booth and grabs one. They have closely analyzed their costs and know the lifetime value of their customers such that they know this approach is very effective for them. If you fall into this category and you know your costs are worth it to build your brand or identity, then by all means try a creative or clever giveaway item that reinforces your brand or identity and get it into as many hands as possible at your next exhibit. Most businesses, however, do not have such a strong identity or such strong brands that this type of image campaign is cost effective.

Customer relations campaign

You might be able to succeed giving away a high value item in a relationship building capacity if you make sure you target your prospects first and only invite pre-qualified prospects to stop by your exhibit booth and receive the giveaway item. Often you can target your audience by sending out a special invitation to your in-house mailing list or by carefully selecting the right segment of the pre-registered attendees using the exhibit's mailing list. In other words, target people you know have the need for or the interest in your products/services first, invite them to visit you at your exhibit booth, and then use the giveaway item as an additional incentive for them to stop by your booth. Marketing is a relationship and you are rewarding your prospects for staying in the relationship with you in this case.

Drawing or raffle

An alternative to using expensive giveaway items as incentives for pre-qualified prospects is to give away only one (or few) such items via a drawing in which you ask booth visitors to drop their business cards into a bowl and then conduct a drawing at the end of the exhibit. You will undoubtedly suffer from the "unqualified lead" syndrome if you choose to go this route. Some marketers use this tactic when they define a dangerous metric to measure their campaign -- the number of leads garnered at the exhibit. We're after quality of leads not just quantity. Do not fall into the trap of thinking that everyone who attends the exhibit or trade show is a qualified prospect. The number of names collected at an exhibit is rarely an effective measure of success.

Also, not only does the "drawing" campaign have to be fair, but it has to be perceived as fair. If people feel they don't have a chance at winning because the odds of winning are very small, then this will limit the effectiveness of the campaign. If you choose this tactic, you also run the risk of overburdening your sales force with expensive follow-up activities or sending out lots of literature to unqualified prospects. This is a hidden expense that many marketers overlook. Lastly, if you choose to conduct a drawing for your giveaway item, make sure it is not against the policy of the exhibit. Sometimes such games of chance are strict "no no's" and against the rules of the exhibit.

Response generation

Most marketers I talk with are interested in maximizing the lead or response generation aspect of the giveaway item while minimizing expenses.

If you wish to use the item as a lead or response generator, then you should think about how that item will either lead to the capture of a person's contact information for sales follow-up or how you will measure the reach and marketing effectiveness of that item. Do not create an item that provides no way for people to contact you (don't laugh, it happens). You are trying to generate a response so you need to provide a way for people to respond.

Ice breaker

If you think, like my colleague initially thought, that you must give away something in great numbers in order to (try to follow the logic here): Increase booth traffic in the hope of talking to more people in order to try to uncover needs and hopefully make a match between those unmet needs and your products and you don't care to measure response rate, then save your company some money and try using some low cost item such as candy. What you are really looking for is a way to break the ice with people and attract people to your booth regardless of whether or not they might have a need for your products or services. I don't necessarily recommend this tactic for everyone, however, it can be effective for people who feel compelled to give away something to attract booth traffic, qualified or not, on a very tight budget.

A bowl of candy is an excellent, inexpensive tactic that works well in this case. Think about it for a moment. A bowl of candy in your exhibit booth is very low cost, will not take much effort on your part, will be appreciated and most visitors will appreciate a little bit of chocolate, a mint, or other such confectionery delight. People will walk up to your booth and ask if it's OK to take some candy. At that point, it is very easy to say, "Sure, help yourself. By the way, what do you know about how you can benefit from our products"? You have broken the ice, you brought people to your booth, and it did not cost you a great deal of additional money on top of the cost to exhibit at the show in the first place.

Impressions

The risk we as marketers take with any giveaway item is that it will attract unqualified takers that are only interested in getting something for free. Since we can never fully and absolutely control this, another alternate tactic is to give away an item that has high pass along value. In other words, an item likely to be highly visible on a desk, attached to a wall, or otherwise be visible for many other people to see. Impressions is the name of the game in this case and we want to maximize the number of impressions -- or exposures to our advertising message -- while minimizing costs.

Examples in this case might be posters, magnets, or paperweights. Giving away expensive or personal items such as laser flashlights, calculators, hand-held electronic organizers, etc. are generally not a good ideas in this case because, although many people will want them, they will be consumed by individuals and very few other people would ever have the chance to see your company's advertising message.

Think about it for a moment.

Have you ever received a calculator as a giveaway item? Did you leave it out in the open for many other people to see or did you hide it in a drawer somewhere so nobody else would see/take it? If you choose to maximize ad impressions with your giveaway item, carefully consider how the item will be visible to many other people or how high its pass-along rate will be. An item given away to maximize ad exposures should clearly and concisely state a primary benefit of your products or services and also contain contact information, such as a URL, address, or telephone number.

Measurement

Measuring your campaign is critical. Here are just a few ways to measure the success of your giveaway promotion:

- Require booth visitors to swipe their conference badge through your electronic card reader
- Require visitors to fill out a form requesting additional information and indicate their level of interest
- Conduct or commission pre- and post-exhibit market research surveys to measure the effectiveness of your campaign and its impact on strategic awareness
- Train your booth personnel to record as much information about your visitors as possible. Booth personnel should collect business cards or otherwise capture people's names and contact information, as well as, take extensive notes about their personal interactions with booth guests

Creating an effective giveaway item for your trade exhibits can be a very important part of your marketing mix. Now that we've taken a look at some ways to approach the process, I want you to think about what you are trying to accomplish before you launch your next trade show giveaway campaign. Understand your budget, define tangible goals, develop a strong message, establish ways to measure the campaign, and most of all, be creative and have fun!

Good luck and happy exhibiting.

A disembodied voice tells us about branding...

The Power of Introverts

What is a QR Code?

Have you started to see strange, digital squares in restaurants, in stores, and on advertisements lately?  Do they seem strangely familiar yet oddly, well, odd  and out of place to you?

Welcome to the age of QR Codes.

And just what is a QR Code?  "QR" stands for Quick Response and these Quick Response Codes are popping up everywhere because they are essentially bar codes...but of a very special kind.

No longer just about keeping inventory or tracking products on assembly lines, these QR bar codes are a way for marketers to generate a unique code that will allow anyone with the proper bar code reader to scan the code and be taken immediately to a website or URL of their choosing.  Most times this will be a web page with more information about the product, an online video, or some additional information regarding the product or service that the marketer is offering.  By taking you to a URL via the QR Code the marketer is able to provide a much more detailed and often multimedia-enhanced experience that otherwise would be space or cost prohibitive.

And just why are these things cropping up everywhere?

That would be because more and more people are carrying fancy bar code readers in their pockets and purses.  These fancy bar code readers are called smartphones.

So now you know.  When you see these QR Codes they are intended for people with smartphones who will scan these codes with their phones and then be taken immediately to an online web page to learn more about the product or service.

Let's Lift the Human Spirit

Many advertisers and marketers seem to have lowered their standards to the least common denominator when creating and communicating their messages. Far too many in our profession seem to appeal to the dark side of the human psyche.

Many marketers feel that no message or style is too raunchy if it provides shock value in the quest for increased awareness and profits.  Although these tactics might be providing short-term bumps in sales and brand awareness, they might be damaging brand equity in the long-term. Further, the messages sent are often socially irresponsible or have no lasting moral value.

As marketing professionals, we create brands and ad campaigns intended to appeal to emotion and elicit behavioral change. Since we are doing the work anyway, we should appeal to positive emotions and seek to elicit responses that lift the human spirit and, perhaps, maybe even bring out the best in others...

Continue reading:
Source: http://www.allbusiness.com/marketing-advertising/branding-brand-development/4682984-1.html#ixzz1ndkElYUv

By The Marketing Guy Who Drives Sales

U.S. Economy Declines, Dollar Store Concept Soars

From:
http://moneyland.time.com/2012/01/27/why-shoppers-and-shopping-centers-alike-now-embrace-the-dollar-store/

Social Media Myths

 A good white paper from OhMyGov.com

http://ohmygov.com/blogs/general_news/archive/2010/08/24/ohmygov-research-social-media-myths-5-roadblocks-to-discovery.aspx