Service Makes the Brand

After more than two years of running my consulting business off a spreadsheet, I decided to get with the times and recently adopted Freshbooks a Cloud-based estimation and invoicing system. Cool tool, I am quite loving its ease of use. But even cooler is the service I’ve received since becoming a customer. My experience with Freshbooks has served to reinforce my personal philosophy as a marketing consultant that if you thrill and delight your customer, your customer service becomes a basis for competitive differentiation and the foundation for a strong and enduring brand image and reputation.

Freshbooks ‘gets’ the audience they serve – the creative small business owner, with limited resources, limited time, and limited patience. Support has been quick and accurate. I’ve had a welcoming email, and phone call offering a helping hand anytime I need it. And they even sent me a t-shirt, accompanied by a personal hand written note. Let me say now, that these things matter. Customers appreciate, and will remember great over the top service. And they’ll not only give you their loyalty, they will tell others about you, and gladly serve as a reference for your business in the future.

Make great customer service one of your governing principles. Trust me, your business will flourish as a result.

Pondering the Power of Why

I’ll begin this blog post with a thank you to a start-up client of mine who drew my attention to this fantastic presentation by Simon Sinek at the September 2009 TED conference in 2009. Sinek’s presentation, and the topic of his book (available on Amazon) is entitled, ‘The Power of Why.’


Not to steal his thunder, the presentation is well worth the five minutes to watch it, but Sinek asserts that businesses typically have their approach wrong when framing out what they do for the market (think investor, customer, media pitches). Typically, folks start by talking about WHAT they do, then move to HOW they do it and finally get to WHY they do it. Sinek asserts that truly visionary companies and individuals actually succeed in captivating their audiences by turning that approach upside down. Begin with the WHY, and you instantly lock into people’s psyche.

Inspired, I just used this formula to rewrite a sales letter for a customer, and boy, did it make a difference.

Lead off with the business challenge. Use stories to relay your message. These are all concepts I relay to clients on a daily basis, but I like simple things and concepts. And as this formula goes, it’s about as simple as it gets.

Check it out. http://www.startwithwhy.com/What/TheBook.aspx

An Inside Job - Building an Effective Brand Starts from Within

Great advice once given to me that has stayed with me for many years.  At the time, my company was considering changing its name, and I reached out to a branding guru to ask his advice.  His response:  "if you are a lousy person, and change your name - you remain a lousy person. The same holds true for a company - if you are seeking to change your brand, focus on better management of your reputation and personality.  What you call yourself, or look like is just icing on the cake."

To sum up his advice, branding is not simply about look and feel, logos and typography. To successfully build a brand with longevity, companies must understand that a brand is about action, personality and a customer’s experience with a company, individual, or industry. Transforming your company's brand reputation will not be achieved solely through the creation and display of a logo or the insertion of advertisements in magazines and newspapers. It is about the way your CEO leads; the customer service you deliver; the way you react when something goes terribly wrong; and the way your employees behave and interact every day.

For my creative friends, I don't mean to diminish the role of great design in constructing a brand image.  A strong corporate identity can set the tone for your business and provide customers with an instant feeling/reaction that is then translated into a brand perception.  Great advertising and media placement can be important reinforcement of your brand with external audiences.  But if the inside of the organization is not fixed; if your culture is poisoned; your customer service stinks; and your CEO fosters internal politics -- well then, you remain just that -- lousy.

Social Networking - Value or Noise?

Social Networking – Value or Noise

It is on everyone’s to do list. It’s the subject of conferences, blog posts and water cooler conversation. Social Media.  But is social media and social networking of value to a small to mid-sized technology company or is it just more noise, noise, noise? 

To mind communicator’s mind, social media is yet another communication channel for a company to leverage and exploit.   The true power of social media is the rapidness in which word spreads, and its direct connection to the grapevine effect.  For those of you interested in reading more about the incredible power of word of mouth marketing, I’d recommend Seth Godin’s book Tribes.

So what is a small to mid-sized technology company to do?  Is it time to get blogging?  To tweet or not to tweet?  The rest of this article is devoted to sharing some of the ins and outs I’ve learned in working personally with social media tools, and encapsulates some of the advice I offer my clients on the topic.

1.       Match your medium to your message

When I talk to my clients about marketing, I explain that marketing is like a quiver of arrows, and depending on the game you are hunting, you use the weapon most suited to the circumstance. Think of the various social media as a set of arrows – and align your choices to your business, and your target customer.  There is data available to you that will help you understand the demographics surrounding various social media to best align your social media strategy to your business.  Aiming your iPhone application at tween and teen girls? Think about MySpace.  The fastest growing demographic on Facebook?  Women over 55 years of age.  Targeting CIOs in financial services?  Then I’d look at LinkedIn, with 45% of its users professionals over the age of 45.

2.       LinkedIn can be a powerful direct sales and marketing tool

While on the topic of LinkedIn, let’s explore some of the ways you can use this tool to advance your marketing mission.  First, leverage the platform’s search capabilities to target titles in specific target segments.  Then use your three degrees of separation, or upgrade to the platform’s InMail service to reach your target buyer with a highly precise and well researched message.  I was awestruck by the success of one of my technology clients. They have used LinkedIn very successfully to specifically target prospective target titles, and have secured massive enterprise deals as a result. They have a really powerful product, so that certainly has helped too.

3.       Think in terms of themes and thought leadership

Approach Twitter in the context of a theme.  Is there a particular philosophy you wish to impart?  A topic where you are equipped to educate?  If approached in a thematic way, Twitter can become a focal point for thought leadership for your company and an important and valued source for knowledge for your prospects.  Also, remember that Twitter has a reciprocal nature to the way it works.  I always encourage my clients to consider it a key tool in their PR efforts.  Follow magazines and editors that cover your industry and your product, and use it as yet another opportunity to relationship build with journalists.

4.       Don’t just talk. Listen.

Social media, like all communication medium is two-way.  So when embarking on a social media strategy, remember to listen just as much, or more than you talk.  Realize that your customers, your investors, editors and competitors will be using these same tools to talk about you, talk with you. Social media tools become a vital listening post and source of “in the moment” information on your products and your company.

5.       Social media participation = search engine optimization

Your own blog, blog rolls, tweets, press releases issued over reputable newswires and other social media participation creates a flow of information and becomes the source for rich and reciprocal links, and page content which in turn elevates your site naturally in search engine rankings.

6.       In social media, you can’t just date. You need to commit.

Building and maintaining a social media, social networking model is time consuming and requires commitment.  Information must be useful, on point, value added, and be delivered with a frequency that keeps followers interested and coming back for more.  So when adopting your social media practice, select carefully and commit fully. Better to do a couple of things really well than spread yourself too thin and fail due to an inability to maintain. 

The Power of Positioning

One of my most favourite tools in counselling technology companies is Pragmatic Marketing’s positioning grid. I find it extremely helpful when working with my start up and mid-market clients in creating the basic building blocks for communication. From this simple exercise, comes forth your boiler plate for a press release, solution descriptions for your corporate one pager, your datasheets, web content and even tradeshow descriptors. This formula for positioning, which originated with the Chasm Group, also helps reinforce to young (and not so young) companies the importance of focusing on the user’s business problem. Too often, the tendency in technology companies is to lead with the product and its cool features, when really in the end, it’s not about you – it’s about establishing resonance with your target buyer.

Give this classic positioning formula a try and see how it works for you and your company. And remember when you go through this exercise leave the technical jargon and acronyms home!  

For: Who is the product for?

Internet savvy business professionals like Paul

Who: What is their driving problem?

Are having trouble keeping up with their email because of spam, overflowing folders, or size limitations

The: Product Name

Our product Gmail Service

Is a: What is our product?

Web-based email tool

That: What does it do to solve the problem?

Provides nearly unlimited storage, intelligent spam filtering, and tag-based email sorting

Unlike: What are competitive products and why do they not solve the problem adequately?

First generation webmail services, which have low attachment size limits, use clunky folders for organization, and allow an unacceptable amount of spam

It: How do we do it?

Uses community-based identification to improve spam detection and allows much more flexible organization by showing emails in a global view or sorted by tag.

Success! A Journalist Calls and Wants to Do a Story. So Now What?

This month’s PR and marketing communications tip is devoted to working with the media, with some practical advice for when the media calls. I’m working with quite a few clients who have been in the media spotlight of late, and thought this tip was a useful one for all to file away.

 

Your PR efforts have borne fruit. You’ve just picked up a voice mail from a business reporter with a National newspaper and they want an interview. Here are some tips I’ve collected from media training experts to help you best position your company, and give the reporter the story he/she needs.

 

When a journalist calls:

• Take down the reporter’s name, media affiliation and story deadline
• Don’t feel compelled to react right away – buy yourself some prep time (even if its a few minutes) to gather your thoughts and facts, and prepare your interview objectives. But do respect the reporter’s deadline & be as responsive as you can.
• Ask about the story – what is the angle? Who else are they talking to Are they talking to competitors? When will the story run? Will they be doing photography? Ask if the reporter will provide you with their line of questioning in advance (not always a request granted but worth asking)

Prior to the interview:

• Develop some key messages – what do you want to say? Don’t be afraid to seek out assistance from your PR advisor and if they are available, request that they participate in the interview – particularly if the subject matter is controversial or if it’s a National newspaper.
• When prepping your messages try to think in “soundbites” or “quotable quotes”.
• Understand the reporter/editor’s goals, and become an ally. Offer to supply additional industry data, research, images or photos for the story, or other story sources. This extra mile will go far in positioning you as a reliable story source for the future and cement your participation in this feature.

Remember:

• Everything you say is “on the record”

After the interview:

• Trade publications may return to you for fact checking on an article – but typically will not provide the article for you to review
•  Mainstream media reporters will not grant you the opportunity to review and comment on the story prior to it being published. See above…re: everything is “on the record”

 

Keep Your Eye on Solving the Problem

Whether you are selling to a customer, pitching a story to an editor, or writing a business plan, its key that you express what you do and how your technology works in the context of the business problem at hand.


In the case of sales – your customer has a problem, and is seeking an answer to his/her woes. So when a prospect visits your web site, picks up your literature at a tradeshow, or sees your ad online, they are quickly (within seconds) trying to determine what you do, and whether you have a solution that is right for them. It is therefore critical to always take the buyer’s perspective and keep their problems in mind when creating positioning statements or sales messaging.

When pitching your story to an editor, the objective and strategy is the same. You are still selling. The editor is the broker, and his/her readers are your customers. The best PR storylines are all about solving problems, and providing solid evidence (i.e. customer stories) to prove you’ve been successful in your mission.

This article in MIT Sloan Management review, takes the problem/solution sales paradigm to yet another level – business planning. The article covers business planning deal-killers and guides entrepreneurs on how to avoid these fatal mistakes. And the number one flaw of most technology start-up business plans? Failing to identify the problem and/or pain that your technology solves.

http://sloanreview.mit.edu/business-insight/articles/2009/2/5121/why-business-plans-dont-deliver/