ethnicomm – the blog part I

With so many social media sites out there, it is easy to spend too much time being “social” and “networking” and not enough time building your business. Without a proper marketing strategy, your efforts are as beneficial as trying to compete against The Hurt Locker or Avatar for attention.

In school, a cheat sheet helps you get to the answer faster but if you don’t know your stuff, the cheat sheet will not help. In fact, you often waste time that would have been better spent answering the question in the first place. The cheat sheet that CMO.com created (see below), nicely categorizes the key social media sites on customer communication, brand exposure, traffic to your site and SEO (search engine optimization). Now you can apply your knowledge of social media to help guide your marketing efforts.

You can download a larger view by clicking on the image.

Remember: your social media efforts should be consistent with your marketing or web strategy. Use the cheat sheet wisely!

What is the difference between Marketing and Sales? I was asked this question and thought to myself…”

if ONE person was asking, many more are probably thinking the same thing”

Marketing gets the attention of the prospective customer through a variety of means like advertising, public relations, viral marketing, guerrilla marketing, direct marketing and promotions. Marketing seeks to persuade the prospective customer that there is value in whatever they are marketing. They help create the “intent” to purchase the good or service.

Sales engages that prospective customer on a personal level via one-to-one contact, presentations, phone calls, emails and other direct communication. Sales tries to convert the “intent” into an action, a SALE.

Sales also feeds market knowledge and customer experiences back to Marketing. Marketing can then take that information and other market research to tailor future communication so that the right customers are targeted with the right message. They work with the information to tweak their marketing mix (product, price, place and promotion) so that it resonates with the target market. As a result, the sales efforts should be more successful since they are connecting with customers that are more apt to purchase.

Marketing and Sales is distinct but exists side by side..they are reliant on each other.

Studying solely from the textbook and reviewing lecture notes sucks (except my notes of course)! Many textbook publishers have really useful websites where you can watch video cases, do online quizzes, mess with flash cards and click on related links that unfortunately are either dead, outdated or horribly lame. There are many creative people posting helpful videos that make the marketing concepts easier to understand and even more interesting.

Pricing Strategies

Product Life Cycle

The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy

Consumer Market Segmentation

Postpurchase Behavior

Post-purchase satisfaction

THE CORPORATION [14/23] A Private Celebration

THE CORPORATION [15/23] Triumph of the Shill

Brand Experience vs. Brand Promise

How to Perform Customer Segmentation

Trademark and Tradedress in Product Package Design

Motivating Sequence for Copywriting: AIDA – Attention, Interest, Desire, Action!

London Barber Whacks the Competition

Selecting the distribution channel.

Channel Marketing: How and Why?

I sincerely hope the above videos have helped you review. Let me know how you did!

I recently went through a rather exhausting exercise creating a “tagline” for a client.  A tagline – you know…those succinct and often memorable statements that capture the essence of the brand.

Think of some of the classics and soon-to-be classics:

• A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste® (United College Negro Fund)
• Don’t leave home without it (American Express)
• Melts in your mouth, not in your hands (M&M’s)
• Just do it (Nike)
• Broadcast Yourself™  (YouTube)

It seems so simple. One line – two or three words even! How hard can it be? It may seem pretty easy to come up with a tagline, but not one that is destined to become a classic. Let alone one that your customers instantly “get”.

So how do you create a good tagline without hiring someone like myself? 

Consider the 5 elements of a great tagline:

1. It is connected to the brand

   Your tagline must make sense. It must be consistent with your company’s vision, culture and values. You can’t do this without knowing who you are, how you’re different from the competition and how your customers see you. If you are just starting out, think about how you would like your customers to see you.

   Lucky Charms “Magically Delicious”
   

2. It is “ownable” (aka Randy’s litmus test)

   The tagline should tie into the core of your company. My former boss used to do the same thing with advertising – I call it Randy’s litmus test. He’d ask – “if we switched logos, would this ad still work?” If it did, then we would not use the ad. The same rule applies to taglines: if one of your competitors used your tagline, would it work for them? If it does, time to try again.

   Can Microsoft use Apple’s “Think different”?

3. It is dead simple

   Simple is so important. You see it everywhere. Memos are simple. Instructions should be simple. Blog posts must be simple! No one has time for complexity – if they do, you don’t want them as customers (they’re too much work)! A tagline that needs to be explained is obviously no good. A long-winded, multiple-sentence tagline is also likely to be ineffective.

   Lay’s Potato Chips “Betcha can’t eat just one”
   

4. It is clear

   This is the really tough part. There are a lot of options but finding the one “gem” takes laser-like focus on your brand and how you want to position your company.

   CNN’s “Go Beyond Borders” does it for me.

5. It is consumer-focused

   It’s not what’s so wonderful about your company or brand but the benefit to the consumer. Consumers don’t care that you’re the leader, the first whatever, the sole supplier, the least hated, and so on – They just want to know why they should buy from you.

   Allstate says it best: “You’re in good hands”.

Here are some words I would suggest you avoid when brainstorming your tagline:

• Anything that starts with “A History of…” or “A tradition of…”
• Anything that ends with “…solutions”.
• Words like Committeed, Facilitating or Making.

Here’s my tagline:

A good idea is a good idea NOW!™

What do you think?

Many of us start the day with the best of intentions but by dinner time, are not entirely satisfied with our accomplishments. It’s hard to stay focused with emails, phone calls, text msgs, IM, SKYPE, Twitter and FB updates constantly interrupting us. Not to mention blog posts!

The time management courses that I took while in the corporate world always focused on making a TO DO list. I tried this one particular Monday and ended up moving the list to Tuesday. This was easy to do using the Day-Timer binder – just click open, remove the list, flip the page and insert the list. I did the same thing on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. By Friday, I felt bad that I did not accomplish most of what I had intended to accomplish.  Knowing that this was a best practice, followed by the masses, I kept at it. By the end of the month, I realize that this doesn’t work for me so I did what I always used to do – successfully I might add!

1. Focus on the stuff that will get me promoted.
2. Then, focus on the stuff that would get me fired if I didn’t do it.
3. Ignore the rest until it fell into either 1 or 2 above.

This is fine if you are in a position where you can be promoted or fired. But what if you’re running a consulting service that helps companies develop a marketing, sales or web strategy? Or any other entrepreneurial venture where you are the boss and thus determine where you actually spend your time? I have found that the primary focus seems to be on keeping the business going NOT on thinking about the future.  What are YOU focusing on?  With proper time management, you can find time to keep the business going while you work on filling the sales funnel.

I recently read a Harvard Business Review blog post that I think will do the trick. It is called “An 18-Minute Plan for Managing Your Day” and suggests three steps that one can easily do. The first step, plan your day, and last step, review your day is obvious. What is unique is the author’s suggestion to refocus every hour. Review what you accomplished (or didn’t accomplish) and recommit every hour. As an entrepreneur, I find this to be a great tool. Now, when clients call and say “what have you personally done to grow my business”, I can quickly respond with specifics!

TimeLeft is a free utility that will help you by quietly counting down and popping up a message every hour. My message is “What have you accomplished this past hour?” Of course I lose 5 seconds reading that

Have you found an effective time management system? Please share via text or video.

Marketing decisions based on surveys can be dangerous if you don’t dig into the data to ensure that the insights gleaned are relevant. For example, a study by Anderson Analytics which is discussed in a ReadWriteWeb article, says a lot about social networkers and says very little! Part 2 of the article is even less informative IMHO.

photo credit: the.joberg

My issues:

• participants were paid to take the survey
• its Amerocentric
• it does not take the life cycle of the individual social networks into consideration

Twitter is relatively new and MySpace is old. The co-relationships between these networks will change over time as more people adopt Twitter and abandon MySpace. As users progress from college to the work world, LinkedIn will also become more important – it’s not a matter of what they like, it’s a question of what benefit they will get from that particular social network.

So, if you are thinking about social networks and where to place your precious ad dollars (or euros/rupees), you should ensure that you understand the data. Remember…numbers don’t lie but faulty interpretations of what those numbers mean could be hazardous to your (business) health.

The June 2009 issue of Business Week has an article called Social Networking: Facebook Looks to India which discusses the push that Facebook is doing to increase market share. The international manager for Facebook is quoted as saying “people like to communicate in Indian languages” (instead of Hinglish). I humbly suggest that enterprising Desi’s will figure out their own way of customizing Facebook – they don’t need a direct translation.

Here are my top 9 predictions of what would change for Facebook’s Desi version:

1. Matrimonial widget that automatically deletes any references to your BF/GF, drinking or any other “hanky panky”.
2. In addition to birthday cakes, you can send samosas and premium ladoos to your friends.
3. You can’t poke someone but you can “dishoom” them mercilessly.
4. Status update options will initially consist of “ji, very good”,”that’s fine, ek-dum fine” and fass-class”.
5. News feeds will be called samachar achar.
6. The We’re Related app will crash the server as everyone adds their masi’s and chachas.
7. Mafia wars will be called Gunda Wars.
8. The Notes section will be called chits.
9. You can’t just tag people, you have to play kabadi until you win the honour of tagging them.

What do you think? Does Facebook need to have 6 different Indian languages to capture share from Orkut?

In one of my lectures on Customer Service, I played a 6:23 min YouTube video from VocalLabs called Ordinary Indignity that followed someone’s customer service experience with HP’s Technical Service. In this video, it appears that HP would like to have a file on each customer and the specs of their machine. Watching this interaction allowed us to discuss the benefits of collecting data when the customer contacts your company and the dangers of doing so at the expense of customer service.

Some of the call statistics VocalLabs presented:
16% – fraction of the call spent listening to hold music
15% – fraction of the call spent talking to a computer
44% – fraction of the call spent looking up and reading model numbers, serial numbers, and file numbers
16% – fraction of the call spent talking about the customer’s problem
Progress made towards solving customer’s problem – NONE
(I’m not sure where the other 9% went!)

They go on to say that the company may have lost a customer for life and asked how much investment in advertising and marketing did that customer represent.

One of my students from the Customer Service course recently sent me a transcript of her experience with Lexar. Much to my surprise (and her disappointment), the customer experience was very similar to that shown in the video. Here is the transcript of the conversation via Lexar Media’s Live Chat:

Welcome to Lexar Media’s Live Chat. A Live Chat agent will join you in a moment… Please do not begin typing until you have been connected to an agent.
Hello, my name is Ravichandran . How may I help you?
Student: Hello, I have a Lexar JumpDrive and I used it to store a project that need to be handed in today, unfortunately, when I tried retreiving the data, I received a message from word indicating that my data was corrupt, and file could not be retrieved. Is it possible to retrieve my report. Please help, much thanks,
Ravichandran: Okay, I will help you in this issue.
Ravichandran: If you could provide me with the model number of your JumpDrive? The model number should be on the back of your JumpDrive and it starts with JD.
Student: OK just one moment, I will check
Ravichandran: Sure.
Student: Sorry its written very small, all I could make out is N12310
Ravichandran: Okay, I understand you need help in recovering the data from the JumpDrive, am I correct?
Student: Yes, thank you
Ravichandran: We are sorry to inform you that we have closed the data recovery services for all type of jump drive; if you want to recover the data then you need to contact the third party data recovery shop. Please logon to website to find the data recovery shop
Student: Thanks anyway!
Ravichandran: I apologize for any inconvenience you may have encountered while using our product.
Ravichandran: Is there anything else I can help you with?
Student: No!.
Ravichandran: If there is nothing further I can assist you with, I’d like to thank you for visiting Lexar..com. Have a great day. 
Student: Thanks!

Would it not have been more efficient use of everyone’s time if the CSR stated right away that they do not offer data recovery services for JumpDrives and provide the link instead of taking down the info and then telling the customer to find it on the website? Lexar can capture the demographic info they need on the live chat BEFORE the CSR comes on. That way they would know the issue and provide the link right away.

This will definitely make for a nice case study the next time I teach Customer Service!

One of the many good people that I have met through social networking is Kellye Crane.  Kellye writes about the solo PR field and is someone that I respect – for her writing and her inclusive nature.  So when she “tagged” me in her meme blog, I was honored and felt compelled to participate even though I’m not one for doing things just because others are doing them.  So here it is – seven little known facts about me in addition to the fact that 7 is my favorite number!

1. In high school, I was a motorcycle jacketed, black Led Zeppelin T-shirt and Kodiak work boot wearin’ rocker with long curly hair to my shoulders and a penchant for all things loud and explosive!
2. While studying anthropology at the University of Toronto, I discovered a way to determine the sex of human remains via visual examination of a part of the skull that was not previously considered – useful for forensic anthropology and picking up curious co-eds. My professor suggested that I make that a research project so I ended up spending the next term in a dark and dingy basement handling 100’s of skulls, observing, measuring and recording.  My advisor was horrible and I hated having to quantify something that was qualitative so I ended up NOT doing a Masters in Anthropology. As far as I know, no one has picked up on this research.
3. I do weird things just because I can. I can write in a straight line without even glancing down at the paper.  I can wriggle my eyebrows independently, often to music. I can flare my nostrils to a beat. Weird? Yes.  Entertaining? Perhaps.
4. I am not lucky. If there was a contest to determine the unluckiest guy on earth, I’d lose! The only contest I ever won was a “guess the number of jelly beans in the jar” but that was not an honest win. The girl who was taking the ballots apparently liked me and told me what number to put in.
5. I used to frequently get bronchitis as a child and was terrified of running for fear of spending a couple of nights under an oxygen tent. My friend Ajay convinced me to try running the Nike Run TO 10K in 2003 and I’ve been running ever since.  Lately from deadlines and creditors j/k
6. I publicly urinated in a water fountain at Expo 67 in Montreal. A precocious 3 year old,  I figured this was as good a spot as any.  I mean, come on,  I saw the water draining down so what’s the big deal right?  My family still laughs at the audacity. Remember that I do weird things because I can?
7. My confidence in public speaking was shattered during a Pub Night in 1990 where my friend Joel and I had volunteered to MC.  A legend in my own mind, I thought my funny wisecracks and witty sayings would wow the audience like Jay Leno, Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert.  Boy was I wrong.  I was a bigger failure than Microsoft’s launch of the Zune! Total bomb. It was a horrible experience – I feel bad even remembering it. Luckily most of the people were drunk so I guess they don’t remember (I hope).

Whew…that wasn’t too hard or humiliating.  Now I have to let the following bloggers know that they’ve been “tagged”.

Jane Chin
Dev Basu
Ann Handley
Alexis Martin Neely
Ruud Hein
Miranda McCurlie
Paul Baranda

Anything that YOU would like to share in this intimate medium called the internet? Don’t worry your secret is safe with me.

If you’re a financial advisor, you’re probably feeling overwhelmed because you’re wondering when the bad news is going to stop.  The media is not helping. There is unprecedented market volatility! Declining consumer confidence, declining property values and declining share prices.  This can really take a toll on you and your ability to think rationally and logically – which is more important than ever right now!

The recommended actions below will help you weather the storm and reposition you for future success.

Connect with your clients – do it now and do it often. Communicate with them in a way that makes sense for you and for them. They probably need a lot more hand-holding now than you do! Think about it from your client’s perspective. What would you want your financial advisor to do? Can you keep them informed and updated with the facts on what’s happening out there? Reassure them and ensure they have all the facts – in the absence of information, it is human nature to assume the worst. You can phone, send emails, newsletters, create podcasts, videos or even host receptions. Connect and reduce the potential for client volatility.

I would recommend that you personally contact your clients. It can be overwhelming so break it down and call or meet your clients in rotation. The more personal time you get with clients, either face time or over the phone, the better. It’s bad enough when the portfolio is not growing but when it is down double digits, clients get understandably irate. The reality is that if the market is down, say 35%, and your client’s portfolio is down 15-20%, it is considerably less than the market. When your client is made aware of this, they will value you even more! This is a client retention (and acquisition) strategy. Other financial advisors may not be contacting their clients because making the call is painful. It can be downright scary but it needs to be done so just do it! You will be happy that you did and your clients will certainly appreciate it. They may even tell others how good their financial advisor is!

Get out! This is not the time to stay in the office and avoid contact with clients and people in general. Like the politicians during election time, you have to get out, meet the people, understand the issues and give them the confidence that you know what you’re doing and are the best person for the job. Join a service organization, volunteer your time and experience to help others and connect with as many new people as you can.

Cut Costs. Identify what is a nice to have versus a need to have. A little saving here and there can add up over time. Are you picking up coffee on the way to work? Why not fill a thermos at home? While you’re at, make yourself some lunch and pocket the savings?  Skip the bottled water – tap water is perfectly fine and much more environmentally friendly. Have a movie night at home and save on the parking, movie tickets and snacks. You can watch pay per view, borrow a DVD from your library, rent one or even download a movie to save on gas as well. Try to renegotiate your rent and other ongoing expenses like your phone, cellular and internet services.  Don’t cut back on anything that reflects on you or your brand like voicemail, client amenities or office cleaning and maintenance.

Look in a Mirror. Evaluate your strengths and weaknesses, look at the opportunities and threats and develop a strategy to take advantage of the situation you’re in. What has worked in the past and what hasn’t worked as well as you had expected? Should you run your practice differently? Alter your marketing? Redefine your “ideal client”? Do you have the skills that you need for continued success?

Network with your peers. You can always learn from your peers. That’s why you are (or should be) members of your local financial planning association.  Hear about best practices and innovative ideas that other financial advisors might be doing during these tough times. Bounce ideas off of them. Even getting together to discuss the market drop helps you stay on your game. Organize a meetup.

Seek help. Your wholesalers call on many successful advisors and they are a gold mine for information. Vendors, lawyers, accountants, mortgage brokers, and other service professionals in different industries will have an ‘outsiders’ perspective on your business. Ask them for some constructive criticism, learn what other professionals are doing, and brainstorm ideas on what you can do to differentiate and grow during this tight economy.

Invest in yourself. Financial advisors are so busy managing clients, working with their broker/dealers, wholesalers and vendors and staying compliant that they do not have time for self-development. You probably have more time now than ever – use this time wisely so that when things pick up, you are able to grow your business by leaps and bounds. Learn about new technologies, read those inspiring or motivating books that you’ve always said you wanted to do if you had more time.  Attend conferences and seminars that will help you in your personal or professional life.  Engage the services of a consultant that can help you assess your practice, create the strategies to do things more efficiently and effectively, and see opportunities that you might not see because you’re too close to your business.

Keep marketing. During tough times, the first thing that businesses seem to do is cut their marketing budgets. This is the best time to raise your profile and it doesn’t have to be expensive. Provide information and your expertise (compliant with FINRA and the SEC of course) to local newspapers, radio and TV stations. Offer to speak at a community event. Write a press release with your own tips for coping. Add your comments to blogs (like this one).  Create accounts at social networking sites like LinkedIn and include who you are and what you do so that others can get to know you.

Leverage your relationship with wholesalers. Your wholesalers are your one stop resource for market commentary and are often more than willing and able to speak on the state of the market. Their presentation has been created for you, and is probably already approved by FINRA, so there is no need to reinvent the where.  Use that content in your marketing but be sure to seek approval from your firm first.

Take care of yourself. As my friend Rita Cheng, CFP, a financial advisor in Maryland USA says:

“People are counting on you to stay strong and healthy. You have to keep up your energy level, get adequate rest, exercise and proper nutrition. If you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of your family and your clients.”