Lady Gaga's Meat Dress

The word ‘different’ has somewhat of a derogatory undertone. By definition, it means, “not the same as another or each other; unlike in nature, form, or quality” and “distinct; separate.” In school, being different meant you stood out and were, therefore, a target of endless mockery and bullying (unfortunately, this seems to be more of a problem today than ever.) But forget what you think you know because in marketing, that IS the whole idea… And it’s called product differentiation.

The concept of differentiation is pointing up what it is about your product or service that sets it apart from the masses. With so much competition in every industry, it is important to figure out why you are unique, OWN it and SELL it. What are you offering that is so special? If you can’t answer this question, you better take a step back and re-examine your offering. Another way to gain valuable insight is by administering a brand perception study, whereby a survey is used to analyze the perception of your product in the marketplace. Here are a few common examples of differentiation points:

• Price
• Quality
• Features/Function
• Availability

And countless others remain. Once you’ve determined your point(s) of differentiation, select the target audience to which that distinction appeals. For example, if cost is your differentiator, target groups who value saving. If it’s quality, seek out a selection with more disposable income that value high-end items. It is important to understand your product delineation first and then target your market, rather than the other way around. If you select the wrong group, you will likely waste valuable time and resources with little to no ROI.

I like to use the example of the “Pop Princesses” Brittany, Christina, Ke$sha, Lady Gaga… And, of course, the Queen herself… Madonna. Industries unto themselves, they’ve had to find something that differentiates them. Whether it’s noticeable to the layman or not, there IS something unique about each one of them … Be it Brittany’s media stunts, Gaga’s meat dress or Madonna’s constant reinvention of herself; they’ve found a way of appealing their brand to a certain audience… all the way to the bank.

What sets YOU apart?

DO

• start using twitter, facebook and your own blog more effectively.
• build trust in your business
• have real people in charge of customer service
• Check out location based services if you have a physical location.
• Make sure you’re monitoring all the right places.

DON’T

• Annoy your potential customers with bad ad’s like UPS
• Be a twitter jerk
• Let your business get lazy.
• Forget to use traditional marketing tools too.
• Fall into the gap mishap.

What’s on your do and don’t list for the new year?

As children, we’re given the freedom to create whatever we want – we can make a box a spaceship or turn a blank piece of paper into a work of art. We didn’t have the boundaries of society, telling us that we need to follow rules or that being unique isn’t okay. “In the past, researchers thought of creativity as the ability to generate lots of new ideas. But in recent years, experts have begun assigning equal importance to learning how to pick the best ideas and solve specific problems, often by working in teams”. (WSJ)

Based on this research, it is clear that if you allow people to be more creative in the office – they will be more productive, create better ideas and come up with better solutions to problems.

Do you allow for creativity? How?

As the end of 2010 nears, I want to talk about ways that we can improve your marketing for next year:

• Look at what marketing strategies worked – and what didn’t. Drop the “what didn’t”.
• Consider the areas of your business you want to improve: communication, customer service, etc and make that a priority.
• Go through all the messaging on your site and make sure that the content is correct, and up to date.
• Put together a to do list for the first month back in the office – making sure to include contacting your past clients for new referrals.
• If you’re using social media tools, determine how you can get more from the time you spend on them.
• Look at your most popular services and determine if there are ways you can get more of that kind of work. Also,are there services or products you offer that get minimal response? Maybe it’s time to get rid of them.
• Tell everyone in the office your goals and focus, the more that know, the easier it will be to stay on target.

Have you already started looking at next year?

Or it’s having a heck of a time at the wake! Last week we showed you how to use both twitter and facebook more effectively. Today I want to discuss traditional forms of marketing and how a hybrid combination of both traditional and non-traditional methods can be key to a successful marketing plan.

Traditional Marketing, typically associated with advertising, is still very much alive and well – at least it should be. With the popularity of social and interactive media omnipresent in the marketplace, it is often assumed that these non-traditional methods have replaced traditional marketing altogether. However, as evidenced in this thoughtful blog post (no, not the one I’m writing now;-) you can see integration and interaction are key elements when creating an effective marketing mix.

Marketing, as a strategy, is about reaching an audience with the ultimate goal of making a sale. As a science, it is a bachelor’s degree. Just as you wouldn’t trust Dr. Dre, the rapper who uses the pseudonym of ‘Dr.’ to perform your heart surgery, you wouldn’t want a 13-year-old “twit” branding your business. Qualified professionals run agencies and although social media is an excellent marketing tool, you simply cannot rely on it as your sole solution to sales generation.

As we face the future of business with ever-evolving technology and media, adding value to your brand by implementing new marketing tools and staying updated with trends in the marketplace is important. But using the tried and true marketing methods proven time and again is imperative. So tweet, blog and facebook but remember, nothing says BUY ME like a good old-fashioned billboard!

How are you integrating both traditional and non-traditional methods into your marketing strategy?

Sometimes a brand name can be so effective it actually becomes synonymous with the product itself. Look at your shopping list – I bet you have at least one brand name written down in lieu of the actual product. Take Kleenex® for example. I bet you don’t even call them tissues anymore… Its just “can I have a Kleenex?” Are you only willing to buy the Kleenex brand of tissue or would you settle for generic? When you order a Coke, are all other sodas off limits or would you purchase Pepsi in a pinch? Other common examples include Q-tips® (cotton swabs), Post-it® (sticky notes), Band-Aid® (bandages), Xerox® (copier) and iPod® (mp3 player).

Branding (even some of these products) has been around since the Industrial Revolution. Even cattle are branded to distinguish them! Through a brief survey (conducted mainly of my close friends who humored me for this post) it appears the brand name itself winds up in the shopping cart, at least most of the time. Personally, my brand loyalty ends as soon as a competitor’s coupon arrives in the mail… And those store brands; while they may not look as pretty, really do perform equally, if not better than their pricier counterparts. However, if a company has been savvy enough to create an iconic brand, you can bet customers ask for it by name!

What other products can you think of that are synonymous with their brand name?

In a world where today is too late and yesterday is so last season, how do you design messaging around a generation that defines instant gratification?

The attention span of an average person may be as short as eight seconds, which means your message must grab the consumer’s attention and either hold it or wrap it up in a few seconds, in order to make it effective.

(Which means by this point, I have either lost you or convinced you to keep reading).

With all the various mediums, ever-changing technology and social media transforming the advertising industry, we, as marketers, have to find ways to constantly innovate our stories.

The trend today seems to be doing just that by making your purchasing decision about the entire experience. Products don’t just serve a single purpose in today’s marketplace – they must defy gravity. A product must be able to multi-task as much as the consumers themselves. It must make your life easier and the purchase itself must be even simpler.

For example, take car commercials. A car is about defining your lifestyle! Are you a busy parent of three? A CEO? An athlete? Buying a car isn’t about getting from point A to point B anymore; it’s about saying to the world THIS is who I am. Even down to your underwear purchase (I’m using Hanes as the example here) you’re choosing the experience of the brand. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to grab my Oakley sunglasses and Prada bag, so I can get to the nearest Starbucks!

What other trends are you seeing in messaging to the “instant gratification generation?”

Personally, I hate most commercials. They annoy me to no end (I’m looking at you Jack in the Box, pretty much any bank and At&T), aren’t that clever and some are just downright ridiculous.

But, every once in a while, a company will put out a beaming ray of hope – a commercial that makes me laugh or pay attention! Just recently, Dodge did just that. Their new Challenger commercial is phenomenal in so many ways. Not only is it beautiful in it’s cinematography, but the messaging, the imagery, everything about it was perfect. They captured the feeling of American better than I have ever seen – and did it with class and a bit of humor. I loved it.

What is your favorite ad campaign running right now?

Last week’s article from the Washington Post on the new 6 bladed razor from ShaveMate was one of the funniest (and most ridiculous) articles I have ever read. Luckily, it wasn’t the Washington Posts fault. The humor and laughter can all be blamed on those who were interviewed – The Tomassetti brothers who created this razor and Damon Jones of Gillette. Let me share with you some of the best pieces of the article…

WP asked why they felt the razor needed 6 blades (the most blades on any available razor), and the Tomasetti’s responded,

“It’s not just the blades,” says Lou Tomassetti who, along with his brother Peter, invented the Titan. “It’s really everything you need in one.” The Titan, he explains, also comes with shaving cream in the handle and a moisture strip.

“If you go out and try to buy equipment for shaving today,” Lou continues, “it’s very complicated.”

“You might have to buy batteries,” Peter adds.

“ShaveMate is really a lifestyle change” from all that, Lou says. “It’s a shaving revolution.”

Really guys? Shaving supplies are so complicated that you had to put everything into one? I’ve seen my husband shave…it really doesn’t look all that tough. So, maybe it’s just these guys thinking shaving is difficult. Certainly the Gillette gentlemen, the ones who first started the trend of adding more blades did it for a better reason? Nope…apparently to them, it is very technical science!

“It’s a scientific approach called ‘progressive geometry,’ ” says Damon Jones of Gillette. “It’s scientifically proven that multiple blades” will cut closer than just one. Shaving with a three-bladed razor is equivalent to shaving three times with a single blade — but, Jones says, even smoother.

“We use technology that’s used in the semiconductor industry and the automotive industry to get the spacing just right between blades,” he says. (Note: Maybe this is why the Mach ads featured cars?) “We’re talking microns,” Jones says. “It’s a very deep technical science.”

Okay, now you’ve got to be screwing with me…you use the automotive industry to get the spacing right?! Now I am really laughing.

Chime in guys – what do you think? Do you really need a 6 bladed razor?

75 years ago your marketing was entirely based on print and word of mouth. There was no internet, no TV commercials, no billboard advertising. If you wanted people to know about you, you had to run newspaper or magazine ads, go door to door meeting people and hope that others would spread the good word about your business. This meant that your customer service had to be top notch. Every detail of your business needed to be perfect so that you didn’t miss the sale for a slip of the tongue or a mistake in marketing. You had to understand your ideal client so you didn’t waste time or energy marketing to the wrong people. You attended events in the hopes to meet the right people – and when you did, you didn’t ask for their email or cell number, you planned a face to face meeting at an office to discuss how you could work together. There were no shortcuts, no simple ways to reach somebody, nothing that made business easy at all. And yet, thousands of businesses grew, improved and became huge successes. Why? Because they worked their butt’s off, understood what it took to  succeed and never let laziness or short cuts inhibit their success.

Fast forward to today – the land of laziness in business. You can send an email from the road, tweet in bed and cold call from anywhere in the world. It doesn’t take much to create a website, and there are tons of places you can market yourself for next to nothing. And all this has led to disaster for many companies. It is  more important now than ever before to make sure that every detail of your business is perfectly in order, because your customers can reach you faster and in more ways! Companies who don’t remember the past  – or don’t appreciate how to really connect with customers – are letting social media tools run their marketing and are hitting a brick wall. Social media is not the answer to marketing, and it is definitely not a solution to save your business. In fact, unless you already have a steady marketing strategy based on the old ways of actually having quality products and customer service, social media will bury you alive.

Is your business being lazy or are you using these tools to capitalize on the changing market?