Advertising

The Big Sort And What It Means For Marketing

The Big Sort And What It Means For Marketing

Garth Beyer

Sorting Skittles

Funny how things come up again, but have a different meaning the second time around.

A tad over a year ago I wrote a short essay on the big sort. The big sort, according to Bill Bishop, is a political, geographical theory. Actually, theory might be too weak. It’s the truth. Americans are sorting themselves out. Moving to places where like-minded people live. Thing is, Bishop (author of the big sort) focuses on such a small part of the big sort and is far too pessimistic. The big sort couldn’t be better for marketers.

In terms of marketing, there’s no need to push anything down anyone’s throat, no need to shove a product into customers’ hands of which are already full, no need to create an ad that appeals to the masses anymore. We finally have a new (dare I say, better) way of reaching people, because that’s what they are now, people, not eyeballs, and they are gathering around other like-minded people, creating tribes.

Marketing is marvelous when the message is received by the right people at the right time. Now people are sorting themselves and as a result making each individual and each tribe more reachable. Best of all, the walls people had to put up from years of brute advertising are becoming more transparent.

When you look at it this way, marketing seems pretty easy. Then again, while it is easier to market, it’s ever more difficult to create a message that’s remarkable. Yin and yang. Ebb and flow. So it goes.

 

Stay Positive & Rainbow Chasers, In One Neat Place For You

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Well That’s Catchy

Garth Beyer

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There are a few awesome McDonald’s ads around the Madison area.

 

“There’s a cold front ahead.” – advertising their iscream

“Diversify your thirstfolio.” – advertising the variety of beverages they offer

 

My significant other loves the advertising (and she’s not one to care much about ads of any kind, so it’s a big deal if McDonalds can stand out to someone who never pays attention to ads).

McDonalds advertising, I must admit, is extremely catchy and sharable, as in, easy to describe to someone who has never seen it before. “There’s a line of different drinks from McDonalds on the billboard and it says ‘Diversify your thirstfolio.'” Catchy because the billboard is placed right between two college campuses.

The problem is… neither of us have gone to McDonalds for iscream or beverages, and we won’t go either. It’s not our thing.

As a result, I have trouble admitting the advertising is catchy because neither my SO or I have been caught.

Some may believe any publicity is good publicity, but most publicity doesn’t lead to increase in sales, customer conversion or general business success.

It’s one thing to be catchy, it’s a whole other thing to not need to be.

In McDonald’s defense, perhaps they use the billboards to maintain their lighthearted, intelligent but goofy personality. I suppose only the McDonalds marketing team knows. But is that a good thing that we don’t?

 

Stay Positive & What Are Your Thoughts?

Reaching The Market Outside Your Home Town

Reaching The Market Outside Your Home Town

Garth Beyer

Marketing Outreach

This is a longer post than I usually write. You could easily skip it and respond to the notification awaiting you on your phone. Alas, I hope you find this as practical, if not more.

We’re All Marketers

I’ve never understood PR folk talking about “outreach” in their own community. To me, that’s inreach, as in, easily in reach; as in, if your business is remarkable enough, the success of it will have enough momentum to touch all those in reach. A great business has inreach built in. Steven P. Dennis calls the hometown diehard fans of a business the obsessive core. Marketers, therefore, are for reaching out beyond the core.

Business plan = inreach.

Marketing = outreach.

Clear? Now let’s tackle the outreach by going over a few tools every marketer needs to understand to reach the market outside their zone, their base, their marked territory.

Not Your Average Advertising

As complicated as Facebook advertising is to understand, it’s quite easy to use to target consumers outside common ground.

Say you’re marketing MobCraft Beer to a state other than Wisconsin where they are based and a current Wisconsin resident follows Mobcraft’s FB page. This follower also has a few out-of-state friends she regularly interacts with. Facebook’s advertising algorithm will pick them up and advertise directly, noting to them there Wisconsin resident friend has liked MobCraft Beer’s FB page and they should too.

All social network advertising, not just social media networks are taking into consideration the value of connections, of handshakes, of conversations over the value of eyeballs. You don’t want the mass, anyway. You want those who matter. Right? Advertising isn’t what it used to be. (That’s a good thing for us marketers.)

Working Email and Mailing Address Lists

There’s no reason not to be A/B testing.

A/B testing in its most simplified definition is trying two different things and seeing which works better. Does a zen-like website page get more click-throughs than a collage-designed page? Will a handwritten card with a great photo on the front work better than a brochure? Will emailing small-time bloggers be more effective than a press release to those in authority? It’s time to find out.

Test and measure, test and measure.

And remember: Don’t get on the scale unless you’re willing to change your diet and exercise routine and don’t change your diet and exercise routine unless you will regularly step on the scale. Test and measure.

Surfing the Internet

If I’m not doing some grunt work, I know I’m not doing the best marketing I can. No matter what client I’m working with, I search on multiple search engines to find forums, blogs, and other places where the tribes have gathered. (And, yes, I go into the depths of Google, far beyond the first, second and third pages of results.) The long tail matters. Every small tribe matters.

A smart place to start is Reddit. A fellow PR daily contributor, Mickie Kennedy wrote a short bit on how to use Reddit for PR.

Through surfing the Internet, you’ll realize very quickly (if you haven’t already) how critical being human is. Most online tribes are skeptical; they will downvote blatant advertising and seek clarification of credibility before they upvote, make a purchase or share what you offer.

You’ll also learn (if you haven’t already) those who are the most loyal to brands are the most likely to turn their shoulder to a brand if they feel the outreach is robotic, if they believe the email they received is the same email everyone else on the list received, if they think you’re just in it for the money or job security or because it’s what your boss told you to do.

Moreover, Outreach has Changed/Improved/Realligned

When I get a pitch that tells me I am part of a company’s ‘blogger outreach program,’ it feels condescending to me. My inclination is to get bristly with the person doing the pitching. Other social journalists feel the same way.” – Shel Israel

Now, I wouldn’t be the first to say you have permission to market to everyone, but why would you need 10,000 strangers when you can make 10 friends, 10 people who trust you, 10 acquaintances who respect you, 10 passionate folk who need you.

Permission is one thing, participation is another. Participation is what matters. Find the 10 avid bloggers who need your product or service and connect with them. Find 10 die-hard craft beer drinkers and get on a Google Hangout together. Successful outreach rarely comes from a single click of “send;” it comes from continuous care, effort, and conversation. There’s another obsessive core out there. Reach out to them.

Successful outreach has improved since the days of mass advertising. It’s not about eye balls anymore; it’s about eye contact.

Now is your chance to build your tribe, to establish connections that matter. As for my last PR/marketing tip: never refer to people you are reaching out to as your target market, as part of your outreach program, as part of your market. They are not a special case because they are outside your hometown, your normal campaign realm, your regular target market. They are all strangers at first, then friends, then customers, no matter what geographical market they are in.

 

Stay Positive & Only Reach Out If You Plan To Truly Lift Someone Up

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Use All The Advertising You Want

Garth Beyer

Or save that money to make sure you can keep your business afloat and add value to your product while you reach out to the users and establish relationships. Start conversations. Send emails. Make contacts. Show up.

Instead of paying for ad space in Denver, drive there.

Instead of paying for ad space in the Silicon Bayou News, contact a reporter, share your story and establish a relationship. Your story is advertising enough. (right?)

Instead of paying for ad space where your target audience hangs, go hang there yourself.

Instead of paying for ad space between television shows, go create an incredible (sharable!) YouTube video.

Advertising is great fun when you have the money to try remarkable things with it, but when you don’t, money is better spent adding value to the experience, to the story than it is trying to show the experience to people with an ad.

After all, if you have to pay for a product to be in someone’s face to get their attention, is your product really worth it? A lot of people are beginning to wonder the same thing.

 

Stay Positive & Experience Speaks For Itself And People Are Happy To Relay The Message

The Truman Set

The Truman Set

Garth Beyer

Harry's GQ Magazine Ad

Harry’s is a brand of men’s shaving products. I’ve had a browser tab open with a Harry’s product (the Truman Set) for nearly a week. I want it. I think it will be something worth talking about. And I’ve had the same big brand razor for at least 4 years. I’m tired of it.

Yet, each time I open my laptop and see the Truman Set, I wonder why I haven’t committed to the purchase. I’ve been asking myself over and over, “What’s missing?”

I think I figured it out.

When you look at the Truman Set you see the handle, two razors, and cream. Harry’s, who tells an exceptionally beautiful story with their products (and advertising!) falls short on putting some of that humanity into the product package. There’s a missing emotional, personal, human factor in the product package.

Perhaps a card verifying the integrity of the product signed by Andy Katz-Mayfield and Jeff Raider? Perhaps a 5-tips guide to shaving written by them? Perhaps a coffee packet or Simply Orange coupon or a unique spoon to get people to share pictures of them owning their AM?

It’s hard to create a flawless product. It’s harder sometimes to remember to add a little humanity to it… sort of the opposite of flawless.

 

Stay Positive & Add Some Surprise To Every Gift

To add a bit of humanity to this post, I’ll have you know each time I refreshed my home page to edit this post, Harry’s advertisement came up on it suggesting I “Shave goodbye to my old razor.” I think I will. 

In A Glass Please

Garth Beyer

It’s not coincidence that wine tastes better in a wine glass. Not scientifically, of course.

Scientifically, the wine tastes the same in a wine glass as it does in a styrofoam cup.

The same goes for how you feel wearing a suit. When I put one on, I feel like I’m important, I feel like I can walk into a room and own it, I feel respected. Are we any different wearing a suit as we are wearing shorts and a sleeveless shirt, scientifically? I’m still me. You’re still you. Scientifically.

One more example,

Treat yourself to a cold can of bud light. Then treat yourself to a cold glass of bud light. Which tastes better?

We have these world views, these wonderful world views that in the most simplest form are summed up into that which we want to believe, is true.

We become more outgoing and astute when we put on a suit because that is what we believe a suit will do. The wine, the water, the beer, the tea, the coffee – tastes great in whatever glass we have it in because we believe that it will. So it goes…

The single best story punctures through the noise in two ways:

1) It parallels a worldview that we already hold.

2) It makes a promise that we will feel a certain way when we have or use the product.

Marketing, branding, advertising – whatever you want to label it – has one goal. To get people to attribute a feeling with a particular product or service. It’s damn difficult. That’s what makes marketing so valuable.

 

Stay Positive & In Marketing, Numbers Are Little, Worldviews Are Huge

The Worst Way To Get New Customers

Garth Beyer

is to tell people that they’ve been doing something wrong. Especially to tell them they’ve been doing it wrong all their life.

Doing It Wrong

Electric can openers don’t sell because their marketing team call people who use the hand-held can openers dumb.

Ipods don’t sell because they say people using Walkman’s don’t understand what it means to have music in their pocket.

Even pizzerias don’t get new people to try their pizza by advertising that people have been going to the wrong place.

If what we do, use or eat gets done what we need done, the how doesn’t matter and surely doesn’t make it wrong. Hell, some even take pride in their traditional ways.

Yet, over and over I see people advertising their product or service by announcing someone has been doing it wrong.

  • “You’ve been baking that cake all wrong! Read our step-by-step guide on how to bake that cake!”
  • “You’ve been doing it wrong all your life! Buy our ten-in-one tool!”
  • “Can’t sleep in hotels? You’ve been doing it all wrong!”

A lot of the products and services that use this marketing approach might be right, but saying someone is doing something wrong doesn’t scale.

What scales is telling a story, showing what the product or service does (letting the user choose if what they’ve been doing is actually “wrong”) and marketing the feeling that the user will have when they use the product or service. That(!) scales.

 

Stay Positive & Seriously, Marketers, You’ve Been Doing It All Wrong

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