Marketing

Guerrillas, Gifts And Holiday Unexpectations

Garth Beyer

Guerrilla Marketing Holiday Giving

Who doesn’t expect a note from you this holiday season. Who doesn’t expect a gift, a heartfelt email, a free e-book on what you’re passionate about. Those who expect nothing from you are those the holiday season allows you to easily surprise and delight.

Everything you do, create, and share ought to be a gift. It has to have thoughtful consideration behind it, it has to be personalized, it has to show you care. Very many people receive very few gifts off or on holidays. Now is your opportunity to make an emotional connection.

Guerrilla marketers find a way to be generous without capital and without going through bureaucratic steps for approval. You may know of guerrilla marketing as flashy objects in odd environments, but it’s really an nontraditional way of being benevolent. Guerrilla marketing is a test of whether you truly believe in what you sell. If you don’t, why would your target?

Make a holiday list of contacts to reach out to.

Create something special for each of them.

And pave a way of gift-giving that’s memorable.

 

Stay Positive & It’s On You To Surprise And Delight

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In The Box Podcast

Episode 33: Alone Time, Fear Of Commitment, Acting As If And More (Podcast)

Garth Beyer

On this episode of In The Box Podcast, we talked about Garth Time and Michael Time, how the heck we combat the fear of commitment, one way to start practicing what you preach, the benefits and potential consequences of acting as if, and lastly, one quality Michael cares most about if he were hiring.

Episode 33: Alone Time, Fear Of Commitment, Acting As If And More

Alone time – How important is alone time?

Commitment – What is one way to overcome the fear of commitment?

Practice what you preach – Best technique to practice what you preach?

Acting As If – What do you think about the idea of acting as if you are ______?

Bonus – You’re the boss. What quality would you look for most in a candidate?

 

Stay Positive & Listen On

If You Look At Marketing As Spending Money

Garth Beyer

Marketing To A Big World

then I hope you are looking at it as spending money on giving people what they want, delivering the already-desired, or at least spending money on getting people to think about things differently.

The wrong way to look at marketing is in the way of spending money for attention, expanding unfocused reach, appealing to the masses.

You won’t make it in the marketing world if you believe in the latter.

 

Stay Positive & It’s A Big World Out There, Are You Marketing Right?

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The Problem With Brand Ambassadors

Garth Beyer

How To Make A Better Product

Naturally, every brand deems it beneficial to have brand ambassadors, but is it the right marketing choice?

Product and service success comes when a brand matches the expected experience the customers have of the product or service. This philosophy explains why it gets more difficult for Apple every product release (and it often leads to the moment your competitors have the advantage).

If brand ambassadors are set forth to talk up the product or service, to embody and represent the brand in the brightest light possible, then aren’t they accomplishing the opposite because one can’t possible meet the ever-demanding rise of expectations the ambassadors are setting?

Better to build a work culture that speaks for itself, one that people talk about because it makes them feel good; it puts them in the light.

If you’re in a business, you’re in the business of making people feel good, consistently. Sometimes that calls for exceeding expectations, but not setting the expectation before the experience that they will be exceeded (what many brand ambassadors do).

Rather than thinking what information brand ambassadors can share, think of what feelings they feel when interacting with your brand and how they can share those.

Anyway, isn’t everyone who touches your brand a potential ambassador? You tell me.

 

Stay Positive & Brand Ambassadors Work When The Culture Was Built With Them In Mind

The Next Level Of Leaving Someone Out

Garth Beyer

It’s getting easier to write and design a creative opt-in subscription. It’s easier than ever before to target a specific market. Thanks to video sharing services, it’s now easy to get everyone “in” to watch a presentation.

What about the people you’re leaving out?

We already know target marketing is about prioritizing who you want to communicate with, but what about those at the bottom of the list, do we simply leave them out?

I don’t think it’s in our best interest to. Rather, it’s in our best interest to switch our hats, and once we’ve decided how to best appeal to the top of the list, decide how can we still – at minimum – satisfy the bottom of the list.

It could be as simple as writing and designing an opt-out portion of a pop up subscription. Or still sending a thank you note to all who made a purchase even though they might not match the target market. Or putting the video of the presentation on YouTube so anyone can watch and learn.

I like to support the mentality that marketers know how to prioritize, but that doesn’t mean we remember to give back to those who aren’t the target market.

If they interact with a brand we manage, we owe it to them (and ourselves, as marketers) to give back in some shape or form.

 

Stay Positive & Prioritizing Isn’t An Excuse To Leave People Out

“I Think It Would Work”

Garth Beyer

Other variations you might here during a strategy planning meeting: “I like the idea.” “I’m convinced.” “You’ve got me hooked on the idea.”

While certainly positive and supportive statements, normally you’re not your target market.

It’s fantastic the idea appeals to you, but what about the tribe it’s truly meant to appeal to? If you don’t plan on investing in the product or service your marketing (if you’re not part of the tribe), then how you react to the marketing strategy doesn’t matter much.

Rather, when you use language like “I think that would really resonate with who we’re trying to target” or asking your colleagues if they feel Kasey (your target) would share a piece of content instead of asking if they (your colleagues) would share it, you begin to drive marketing that matters.

 

Stay Positive & Put Yourself In Their Shoes (Then You Can Use First-Person Pronouns)

The Hardest Part

Garth Beyer

I’ve just been given the best client to strategize a new PR and social media plan for: It’s the agency I work at.

I figured I would share some wisdom from past experiences working with a new client, from a craft brewery to my own business to a multi-million dollar retail company, and now the agency I work at.

It’s easy to start with the logo, the name, the website design, and the tagline. Much harder to start with the most simplified message of why the entity exists, who you want to appeal to (because it HAS to be narrow), and, my personal favorite, the four words that you identify with your brand, which will easily be seen in every single message you put out.

The latter of the above is exactly what makes the former fluid and all-around accepted, because while those items might be easy to start with, they’re not as easily approved by the business, the customers, the stakeholders.

You can’t convince anyone a message works unless you inform them and enforce why the message exists in the first place.

Lastly, while it’s fun to focus on the shiny, it’s more fun to work on it when you know someone will care that it shines. Not to mention you save time when you prioritize the hard work.

 

Stay Positive & Do The Hardest Part First