Investors are a different breed of consumer. Marketing 2 Investors provides tips, thoughts and commentary on ways to better locate, serve and organically grow your base of investor clients.
There is a reason companies pay the million-dollar-plus premium to reserve ad space during the Super Bowl: Brand recognition. But in a day and age when ad agencies are creating as many creative hits as they are nonsensical misses, the question must be asked: In marketing, when does using “quirky” and “funny” actually make sense?
One of the more challenging issues in blanket marketing is recognizing your audience—or, rather, marketing to all audiences. This is made even more challenging by the simple fact that what’s funny or quirky to a 14-year-old (namely, bathroom humor) is going to be different than what’s funny or quirky to a fiftysomething (aging humor, incontinence, etc).
The solution? Know thy audience. And tread carefully with the funny.
Now, I concede that “funny” is subjective. But that’s the point—your funny, quirky and creative new marketing or advertising campaign will work best if you can do two things: make it intuitive to viewers and get to the punch line quickly. The less your readers have to think or try to make sense of what you’re saying, the better.
In 2006, in an effort to further its foray into resurrecting classic trends, the Gap made what was in my opinion a fatal marketing mistake with a simple and honest pair of pants. Their product, the newest rendition of the “new” black peg-leg flat-front pant, was sure to be a worldwide hit. Classic? Overwhelmingly, yes! I have a pair, my mother has a pair and so does my grandmother. Unfortunately, the Gap ad team also decided to resurrect one of the most sacred icons of fashion, the late, great Audrey Hepburn, and dub her dancing over the also-sacred AC/DC rock ballad “Back in Black.” Even worse? It was all in the form of iPod-wannabe animation, voiced over with lines from Hepburn’s classic, “Funny Face”:
By trying to revive a classic that could, by most individual definitions, transcend generational trends, the Gap ad team managed to (in a failed attempt at quirky) make three fatal marketing mistakes: First, they corrupted a graceful film icon in a classic film (“Funny Girl”); second, they shamed a classic wardrobe staple; and third, they perverted a monster-ballad by rock legend AC/DC. And all in one minute and five seconds.
Now here is a refreshingly good and memorable example of funny, quirky, stick-to-your-ribs marketing and a personal all-time favorite: Tide’s “Tide To Go Stain Remover” Super Bowl commercial.
The Tide marketing team has an edge because of their product: Who doesn’t spill on their clothes? Their product is easily marketed to everyone including busy moms, suited working professionals, yearbook-picture-taking high schoolers and people of all ages who care about their appearance. This ad seals the deal by associating a relatable situation—an uncomfortable job interview—with their product.
Here are three suggestions to market yourself using humor (carefully, now):
1. Be only as funny as you need to be:
Coming up with a game is a great way to get viral with your marketing. A favorite are the monkeys from CareerBuilder. I still send my friends, family and colleagues talking monkey e-cards. Perhaps I’m the only one who thinks they are funny. Why? Because monkeys don’t talk, and when you dub a female British voice over a video of a male monkey chewing gum and wearing a fruit basket on its head and send it to your friend, it’s just plain funny.
2. Don’t take yourself too seriously (but beware the limits)
In the ever-stuffy environments of insurance, banking and office supplies, who can forget the dancing elves from Office Max, or the naked bank executives from Washington Mutual?
3. Funny and quirky are almost always applicable
Particularly when involving something that isn’t traditionally funny. Axe body wash/spray is a great example. Is body odor funny? Only if you’re a 10-year-old boy, and it’s not your own. Otherwise it’s embarrassing. But the commercials are quirky and mostly funny because they make light of the idea that women will flock to men that smell good. Proceed with caution here, as this is a narrow truth.
How you dress matters. How those around you dress also matters.
If everyone you work with wears a suit and a tie to the office, a sport jacket with t-shirt could signal you are more laid back, real and entrepreneurial. If everyone you work with wears a sport jacket and t-shirt, a business suit can communicate a higher level of professionalism, dedication and work ethic.
Nothing in this world is interpreted without context. This extends far beyond the clothes we wear. Those daring enough to be unique take a risk in straying from the norm, but also find great opportunity in being different.
Take a look at the websites in your industry. Are they all the same? Do they all offer the same message? If they do, there is an opportunity for you to be different and to single out part of the market that doesn’t want the same approach provided by everyone else. If your competitors are wearing suits, don a sport jacket and t-shirt. If your competitors are wearing sport jackets, don a suit. Look different and communicate differently and you will draw attention. Depending on what you have to say, that attention could be very positive.
Just keep in mind that it is possible to take it too far. As I was reminded by our associate editor, Trista Winnie, “There’s standing out, and there’s standing out like a sore thumb.”
My wife is pregnant and hasn’t been feeling well lately. Attempting to be a supportive husband, I decided I would venture to the maternity clothing shop in our local mall to purchase her a belly band. This is an amazingly complex yet simple contraption that looks like a tube top, designed to allow pregnant women to wear their non-maternity clothes for a longer period of time. I still haven’t figured out the physics behind it, but apparently it works.
I walked into the store, asked the cashier for a belly band and was being rung up within 30 seconds. Then the world slowed down. She wanted to know my address, my e-mail, our due date and my phone number. As an avid hater of spam in my mailbox (both of them), I am not usually a fan of giving out my information. I gave her my information anyway, despite being pushed to the edge of my comfort zone.
“Would you like to receive two free issues of Parenting magazine?”
“Sure.”
“Have you thought about starting to save for your child’s education?”
“Yes.”
“That’s great, because we offer 529 education savings plans.”
“I’m not interested, thank you.”
At this point my defenses were completely up. This cashier had pushed past the point of comfort on the first sale and asked for too much. She then handed me a piece of paper with the Parenting magazine logo on it.
“You just need to sign this to get your two free issues.”
“Is this one of those free trial subscriptions where I have to cancel it or they will charge me?”
“Yes, but it is really easy to cancel.”
“No thanks, then.”
What this situation reminded me of is how delicate a new relationship with a customer can be. I will likely never go back to that store--at least not without my wife. It wasn’t that they did anything horribly wrong, they just pushed too hard and reminded me that they weren’t there to help me as much as they were there to sell me as much product as possible. Had they taken my contact information, they could have developed a relationship over time via e-mail or snail mail. Maybe I would have taken a look at their savings plans for children or signed up for a trial subscription.
No one likes feeling like a dollar value. Don’t bombard your clients. It puts them on the defensive and destroys your ability to build trust by consistently delivering value that is in their best interest.
Business transactions can take a long time and require a fair amount of due diligence. This can be painful for both buyer and seller. Buyers, after the initial letter of intent is signed, must verify and validate all the information and numbers on which they based their offer. Sellers must ensure the buyers are provided with detailed information and don’t find reasons to pull out of the deal.
A business broker friend, Scott, who has been involved in a hundred or so business transactions, once told me that the way to get a deal done is to plan the discovery process so that the story got better over time. I asked Scott what he meant by that. He replied that most sellers feed buyers with all the good information up front. Then, as they move through the due diligence process, they run out of new and positive information to share with the buyers. Buyers actually dive into and evaluate the risk factors of the business during the due diligence process. This almost inevitably includes discovering information that does not meet their expectations.
Scott’s belief is that during the due diligence process is the most important time to communicate good news. This helps keep buyer enthusiasm high as the deal gets closer to completion. Scott even suggested reserving some of the good news and information to release during the due diligence process. Careful planning of how the story unfolds for buyers has seen consistent success for Scott across many deals.
I think there are some lessons that service and investment providers can take from Scott’s experience. In any investment transaction that requires research and a reasonable amount of time before closing, it’s important to ensure that the story continues to get better. That’s the best way to ensure the buyer moves forward and closes the transaction. How can you make your story get better over time?
Time recently featured an article on Howard Schultz’s return to Starbucks. After a rough year, Schultz has taken the helm to attempt to right the Starbucks ship. His belief about Starbucks’ drop in U.S. traffic (its first ever) is that recent decisions have “led to the watering down of the Starbucks experience.”
If you’ve visited a Starbucks recently, then you likely know what this means. Starbucks now sells CDs & DVDs, charges for Wi-fi access, peddles breakfast sandwiches and has been skimping on the plush carpet and lounge chairs one used to find in each Starbucks location.
This is not an uncommon problem for growing businesses. In an effort to grow the bottom line, a business undertakes selling other goods and services that are ancillary to their core services or products. This is not unusual even in small personal service businesses led by real estate agents, attorneys and investment providers.
I’ve seen many smaller service providers attempt to craft revenue sharing arrangements with other professionals and expand into areas outside their core expertise. Now we have the real estate agent who can also do your mortgage, or the residential investment provider who will also help you find a commercial project. This tends to dilute the focus and reduce the value of a provider’s core service.
In his interview with Time, Schultz posed the question, “We've been selling teddy bears, and we've been selling hundreds of thousands of them, but to what end?”
This morning I was blown away by the speech of a 15 year old. It wasn’t that she was more intelligent than the average 15 year old. She was. It wasn’t that she was more composed than the average 15 year old. She was. It was that she had a story and told it from her core with conviction.
For a few brief minutes she owned everyone in the audience. I have no idea how many thousands of dollars were raised as a result of her speech, but I can tell you she was the reason for my donation.
In a world full of sales gimmicks and half truths, the power of a story has never been stronger. It has the power to capture our emotions, to tap into our empathy, and to communicate in imagery. Stories aren’t pushy. They allow us to draw our own conclusions. In a world where talk is cheap and advice plenty, stories are a breath of fresh empowering air.
If you want to sell me something, tell me a story. Tell me a powerful story that’s not about clever marketing phrases or rhetoric. Tell me a story that is about hope, a better life, or the chance to make a difference for people I care about.
It doesn’t matter if what you sell is a clean house or a multi-million dollar investment. Your product or service is there to solve a problem. What is the solution you provide? What is the powerful story that communicates your solution? Do you truly believe it?
I have been on hundreds of airline flights. With all of that experience, could I tell you all of the things that flight attendants must cover in their safety pronouncements before takeoff? Probably not. The fact is, I started tuning out those messages many years ago. I was struck by this as I returned home from a holiday weekend with the in-laws.
The flight attendant giving the safety presentation caught my attention for half a second by “spicing” up her presentation with some jokes...not unlike those for which Southwest is famous (although I rarely fly Southwest because of my affinity for assigned seats).
My attention faded after about five seconds. That was how long it took me to realize that she was covering the same “buckle your seatbelt” and “here are the exits” material I have heard hundreds of time before. As I settled back to my book a thought went through my mind; I have a short attention span for messages.
Thinking about it more, I realized that my attention span is not short for every message. I was all ears for the messages in the terminal. Why? I wanted to know if the plane was going to be delayed, if we were ready to board, and/or if I was going to miss my connection. My attention span only became short when I believed there wasn’t value for me in the message.
There is a reason that most companies get a better response from a mention in a magazine versus an advertisement in one. There is a reason that more people click on the organic search results in Google versus the sponsored ads.
We have learned to tune out most marketing messages because they are designed to sell, not to add value. Find a way to add value to a prospect and they will be all ears for your message.
I was reminded today of one of the most interesting technology companies that grew out of the recent real estate bubble. The company is called House Values, and they grew to a market cap of around $1 billion at the peak of the market.
I pulled a quote from their website:
“House Values recognizes that our success as a company is always measured by the success of our customer and partners.”
Based on what I have heard from the real estate agents that I have talked with and the general consensus on the world wide web, the “success” achieved by House Values' customers has been less than spectacular.
Look, here’s the thing about HouseValues. It is a lead generation tool that deceives the public into thinking that they are getting free information about the value of their home, but really just collects their information and sells it to the highest-bidding real estate agents. And it’s not like they give the consumer’s information to a highly-trained and qualified Realtor that has passed a thorough screening process. No, they just sell it to whoever will pay.
The point of all this is that it is easy to lose sight of meeting the needs of our clients long term. Why? Sometimes it’s easier to make more money in the short term. That’s why banner ads still exist, despite the fact that most of us them find them more than casually annoying (yeah, I’m the lucky 1,000,000th visitor yet again!).
Focusing on short term sales techniques may work for a company that is pushing for a quick and large initial public offering (IPO) exit via the stock market. However, it’s not sustainable for service providers.
Focus on adding value to your clients and your business will grow...with sustainability and momentum.
I was recently talking with a website developer whose wife is a real estate agent. I asked him if he was spending some time helping her with her online presence. He proceeded to tell me about some of the things he was doing to promote her website.
At one point I asked him, “what does she specialize in?” He seemed confused by the question, and I doubt he’s alone. Most real estate agents make their living by trying to be everything to everyone. They do listings. They do purchases. They do investment properties. They do commercial. They do dabbling.
As an investor, I have no desire to work with a general real estate agent (unless I’m looking to sell a property to a general buyer). I want to work with someone that has specialized knowledge. The more specialized knowledge, the better. If I’m looking to invest in a foreclosure property, I want an agent that only works on foreclosure properties. Why? Because I want the best...not mediocre.
Don’t dabble. Find your niche. Being mediocre doesn’t pay well.
