Roy's Blog: Marketing
June 15, 2013
Roy’s Rant!
“What’s our competitors doing?”
“Who is Best in Class and what are they doing to be successful ?”
Who cares!!
Why do you want to COPY someone else?
Do you think copying will make you special? Attract customers who will spread your word to others?
IT WON’T!
Copying = the enemy of being special and remarkable.
It will make you a solid member of the Faceless Herd. Just like everyone else.
Common. Invisible. Boring. Predictable.
Dead (sooner or later).
Aim at your Fans. Do stuff for them. Be special for them.
Do what others are NOT doing. Go in the opposite direction.
Let others chase YOU.
Cheers,
Roy
June 10, 2013
Tip for Entrepreneurs
There is a plethora of good business ideas out there being produced by many smart people.
The challenge, however, is how to make YOUR idea a successful one. The one that people salivate over. The one that captures their imagination. The one that takes their breath away.
My BE DiFFERENT or be dead Principle is simple and is the basis of creating a successful entrepreneur:
“Create Value that is Relevant (something people CARE about) and Unique (something that ONLY you do)”
Value? What you DO for people; not what you produce, supply or push to the market.The benefits you give to people. The emotion you elicit. The memories you create. The experiences you cause to happen. Value has little to do with technology and the whiz-bang things it can do. If technology doesn’t evoke emotion or satisfy a craving, it’s worth nothing. Value is NOT flogging your product or service to the masses. If you want to intrude on and interrupt people, choose this strategy. But you won’t last long.
Relevance? Talk to the critical few things that are important to your target customer. Things they care about. Things that evoke an emotional response. Speak to them directly and intimately.
Avoid the temptation to push your Agenda on the crowd. This is a lazy marketing tactic with no positive return on investment. Sure, your message might illicit a positive response from a few people, but the more likely outcome is that most of the crowd will be annoyed that you injected yourself into their space, or will ignore you. Speak to what people desire not what you want to flog.
Uniqueness? Be the ONLY one that does what you do. The ultimate manifestation of being unique is the ability to create my ONLY Statement:
“We are the ONLY ones that…”
You don’t want to be best, #1 or excellent. These are a aspirations at best and give your audience no specific reason why they should do business with you as opposed to anyone else.The Herd speaks in grandiose vague terms. Don’t go there.
Here’s an ONLY example that I like:
“Insulinpumps.ca is the ONLY company offering a full range of insulin pump therapy products, education, support and diabetes Business Development.
We ONLY serve Pharmacy.
We are Powered by Pumpers.”—Melany Hellstern, CEO, insulinpumps.ca, Oakville, Ontario, Canada
Don’t fall victim to the Grim Reaper and risk failing like many in The Entrepreneurial Herd.
Break-away. Stand-out. BE DiFFERENT.
Cheers,
Roy
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May 25, 2013
Roy’s Rant!
Ever heard this one before?
“I can’t give you that table as there is no server assigned to it.”
I get it.
It’s about sitting at a table where management has decided to assign their employee.
It’s about conforming to how they want to supply their services.
It’s NOT about “allowing” the customer to sit where they want and THEN assigning a server to take care of them.
The supply side of business wins out over the demand side (again).
DUMB!
Cheers,
Roy
April 15, 2013
Telemarketers: Salusbury Steakus Interruptus
Here is dead-on commentary from Terry O’Reilly, Author of The Age of Persuasion.
- “It’s not so much the creativity of the ads, it’s that they’ve nothing unique to say.”
- “The world has come to look like a NASCAR driver’s racing suit, with every square inch occupied by a logo.”
- “Every ad, no matter how entertaining is an interruption.”
- “The Great Unwritten Contract... promises that advertisers must give you something in exchange for their imposition on your time, attention and space.”
- “Telemarketers (Salusbury Steakus Interruptus). Telemarketing breaks the Unwritten Contract, disrespecting the customer and interrupting without apology. It breaks all the Rules... It isn’t pleasantly surprising or polite, or humorous or meaningful. Telemarketers make no attempt to build a relationship With their clients, nor do they try to… offer something in exchange for the customer time. They don’t give you anything. They just call to take.”
- “A Brand is more than an abstract idea, a slogan or logo. It’s an experience that appeals to the senses and emotions.”
- “... if the pitch is fleeting, so is the loyalty.”
- “... advertising only helps a bad product fail faster.”
- “Competitive advantage goes to those who create an experience that appeals to MORE senses.”
- “Rules are what the Artist breaks. The memorable never emerged from a formula.”
- “Logic and over-analysis can immobilize and sterilize an idea.”
- “Execution becomes content in a work of genius.”
- “In communication, familiarity breeds apathy.”
- “Imitation can be commercial suicide.”
Great notions to keep your communications Relevant and Unique.
Cheers,
Roy
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