Mass

You’re Not Charging Enough

Garth Beyer

I get asked a lot if a price someone is charging is enough.

“Should the app just be free?” “How much should the admissions ticket be, I was thinking $10.” “I really want to work with this client, should I lower my price?”

More often than not, I get a “Oh… Really?” response when I tell them they’re not charging enough. That is, until I explain why they’re not charging enough.

When I worked with my dad in his painting and remodeling business, I learned there were often jobs he had to bid for. Did he lower his price to compete with other bids? Or did he keep it high, reflective of the quality of work he would produce?

It was more of a question about the fan base he wanted, not how much money he would make. Often times he would bid a higher price to decipher whether the business was a raving fan or not. (Better to work for a fan, a friend than someone who feels they’re in a position to constantly criticize.)

Imagine Dragons can charge $300+ a ticket because they don’t need to allow critics in their concert. The price you charge is the first gateway to deciding what audience you’ll attract. Quite simply, a low price exposes you and your art to people who may not be avid fans. Is that what you want?

Free can help you in some ways. Free can attract the mass. But free won’t get you where you want to go in the world of your craft.

 

Stay Positive & So, Yes, You’re Not Charging Enough

 

“Everyone else does it.”

Garth Beyer

Ugh. Just typing that title makes me cringe.

When we reason with it, we forfeit our freedom, we forfeit our desire to create, we forfeit exercising our brain to think about things differently.

When we go along doing, saying, thinking what “everyone” does, says, and thinks, we don’t just stand still ourselves, we don’t just stop our own momentum, we put the brakes of progress on all of society.

People die standing still. By rationalizing your actions on the basis of “everyone” doing it that way, your quickening that death for you and the community you’re now representing.

The only and best option, then, is to catch yourself, change your path, and do things differently.

 

Stay Positive & “Everyone” is almost always wrong.

*I used “Everyone” in quotations because “Everyone” is a specific group.

Your Consumers Are Only Getting Smarter

Your Consumers Are Only Getting Smarter

Garth Beyer

Branding

The uninformed consumer is passé.

It’s ever more important to put a story out that matters (if not because you actually have one that matters, but because it is becoming the only way to survive in business).

The days of advertising and appealing to the mass are over. Now people are steadily searching out brands, reading about stories, seeing reviews from people who worked at the company of the product they want to buy. They actively ask what their friends think of a particular product before making a purchase. They read the “about us” page before they continue looking at what to buy.

Very soon Unilever will lose customers to their brands because people will see that they run provocative ads for their Axe brand that directly counters the messages they are trying to get across with their Dove brand.

These conglomerates that are trying to reach the mass by switching what brand they slap on a product won’t benefit them in the long run, simply because people are now realizing how one company is running the majority, and they’re not happy about that.

Take the beer industry for instance. The rise in craft brewery sales can be pinned (among other things) to consumer’s realization that Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors are the parent companies to some of their previously favorite beer brands.

Now people are starting to go to the restaurant that has a family story over the chain restaurant where computers rule.

In the past, having 20 brands owned owned by a parent brand worked. Now people want one brand (the parent) with one product. And that’s good for you and me because it offers us the chance to tell a story that truly matters, resonates with humans (not robotic consumerists), and allows us to pour our hearts into one bucket.

 

Stay Positive & Being Passionately Forward Leads To Consumer Attachment

Photo credit
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

Photo credit

What You Don’t Realize You’re Getting Paid For

Garth Beyer

Right now, as you’re reading this, you’re getting paid to ignore the trolls, turn your shoulder to the critics and shun the naysayers. Invite this belief into your world: you get paid to mute those who try dragging you down. I have yet to measure an action that receives more return on investment than ignoring trolls.

Concerned there’s an honest opinion that may help improve your work somewhere deep in the paragraph of disdain. Why not ask a friend to read the comment for you and let you know if they agree with anything. The thing about trolls is they will keep on trolling. The thing about friends is they can provide true, helpful criticism.

Ignore the trolls. Keep your faith, your motivation, your passion.

Listen to them. Lose everything.

It’s a downward spiral.

 

Stay Positive & You Can’t Please Everyone (Nor Should You Want To)

Why The Weird

Garth Beyer

The mass view top lists, the average find and share the weird.

10 years ago they were one in the same. Five years ago people had the ability to search for the weird, and they began sharing it. Now, though, that has become the average and it’s hurting the weird.

The weird is special, it’s signficant, it’s heartfelt. Now people are monetizing the weird, turning them into top lists.

Don’t find the weird, just to share it. Find the weird to better yourself.

 

Stay Positive & The Weird Will Change The World

Garth E. Beyer

 

(a spin off of Seth Godin)

Vending Machines

Garth Beyer

Why don’t vending machines have a slot for consumers to suggest what they would like to purchase from the machine next time it gets refilled?

No pretzels? Put in request.

Machine gets refilled. Pretzels found.

You can aim for the mass or you can aim for those who will purchase from you and hope to still please the mass in doing so. If not, it doesn’t quite matter. You still made a sale.