[tweetmeme]Word of Mouth (WOM) marketing is the newest buzzword, so it seems.  Michael Stelzner devoted a column to it in Social Media Examiner today when reviewing location-based social networks like Foursquare.  And no less an authority than McKinsey, the consulting firm, has carried two articles about WOM in recent months.

Social networks are providing a natural platform for marketers to try out coupons, contests and giveaways to generate buzz and sales.  You’d think that they had invented something brand new.

Word of Mouth (WOM) the new buzzword

I’d like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the woman who virtually invented WOM, or viral marketing, way before the Internet enabled legions of communities on Twitter and Facebook to spread news around the world at the speed of sound.

Viral Marketing

In the 1980s, Linda Pezzano got the assignment to promote an obscure board game, called Trivial Pursuit.  Linda was a friend, and before her untimely death in 1999, she showed me a presentation that she gave at marketing forums about how she reinvented the way games are marketed through viral marketing.  Selchow & Righter, which bought the rights from the Canadian inventor, couldn’t afford traditional advertising.  On a PR budget of $40,000 (about $88,000 today), Linda developed a program that generated sales of 1 million sets in the first year – an astounding and unimaginable number – without a penny spent on advertising.

The Story of How She Did It

What she did then is commonplace now, so let me tell you the story of how she did it.  Linda convinced the company to let her send the game to the 70+ Hollywood stars mentioned in the game, such as Gregory Peck, James Mason and Pat Boone who liked playing it so much they sent her letters of thanks, which she then proceeded to use in her promotions.  She also sent teaser mailings to 1,800 top buyers who would be attending the industry’s major trade show, the 1983 New York Toy Fair.  She also sent sets to radio talk show hosts and staged game-playing events at parks, bars, restaurants and ski clubs to get WOM going.  The rest, as they say, is history, with Trivial Pursuit becoming one of the most successful board games ever launched.

I just want to point out that many of the marketing techniques in use today in social media aren’t new. We are standing on the shoulders of pioneers like Linda Pezzano, in viral marketing, John Caples in direct marketing, and Edward L. Bernays, long recognized as the “father of public relations.”  They achieved great things without the Internet, proving that original ideas are still the currency of successful marketing campaigns.

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[tweetmeme]I’ve been blogging about twice a week for well over a year now.  I gave my first update last summer about why I blog.  Write Speak Sell would become the focal point of my thoughts about communicating ideas, which is at the heart of what I have done professionally for over 30 years.  It’s liberating to say what you really think and believe, while always being authentic.

A blog is the centerpiece of a company's social media strategy

Since then I’ve also come to believe that a blog is the centerpiece a company’s social media strategy, both internally and externally.  The CEO is where it all starts. Wise leaders are using social media because that’s where their employees and customers are.

The CEO needs to be talking directly to the company’s stakeholders regularly with quick takes on new developments.  A blog is the perfect vehicle because the nature of a blog is to be informal and for it to express the personality and communicate the authentic convictions of the writer.

A blog liberates the CEO from his ivory tower and into conversations with employees and customers in the social media communities they populate. This is a big culture change for most companies.

With a keystroke, the CEO can distribute her blog to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media sites where people are getting their information now days.  She can be out there first with the news, before the rumors and misinformation start flying around the Internet.  There isn’t time for a press release vetted by a dozen lawyers before it’s distributed.  Everything is transparent now.

Employee Engagement

The CEO can profoundly influence the company’s future success when employees to buy into his vision. But employees can’t march in step with a CEO who doesn’t engage them in a two-way conversation about his goals for them and the company.  If he does that, they can become the company’s most important brand advocates and commit to providing superior customer service.

Once again, I cite Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh as the pioneer.  In his blog last year he wrote a piece, “Your Culture”  In it he said, “It’s a very different world today. With the Internet connecting everyone together, companies are becoming more and more transparent whether they like it or not. An unhappy customer or a disgruntled employee can blog about bad experience with a company, and the story can spread like wildfire by email or with tools like Twitter. The good news is that the reverse is true as well. A great experience with a company can be read by millions of people almost instantaneously as well.”

Good advice and a good example to follow.

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[tweetmeme]Many chain stores are beginning to tailor their products to the local marketplace.  It’s called “localization.”  Macy’s calls its program “My Macy’s.”  Best Buy calls its program “customer centricity.”  An excellent report on localization by the consulting firm Kurt Salmon & Associates demonstrates that catering to local tastes and needs really pays off.

Home Depot could use a saw

So why is this important to me?  I live in Manhattan (the one in New York) and, as everyone keeps telling us, we’re different from other folks.  People outside the city can’t grasp that most of us don’t have cars, for example, and that we rely on public transportation.  We also rely on our supers and handymen who we value much more than, say, our doctors.  You can always get a new doctor but you’re stuck with the staff you have.  (I’m not complaining – I have a great super).

That’s why my trip to Home Depot this afternoon was so dissatisfying.   I went in to purchase a 2-inch wide piece of baseboard and several tubes of white painters caulking.  They had both, but the baseboard comes in 10-foot lengths.  When I asked the salesman if he could saw it in half so that I could get it home, he replied, “We only do that in stores outside of Manhattan.”  Really?  People outside of Manhattan have cars and big SUVs to throw their things in the back.  Ever try getting on a bus at rush hour with a baseboard almost twice as tall as you are, or in a taxi, if you can find one?  Not easy.

So I walked home, whacking awnings and signs and barely avoiding paddling some pedestrians’ behinds.  I know my local hardware store will saw something for you, because I’ve bought shelving from them that that needed to be sized.

So, next time you go to Home Depot, don’t forget to bring your own saw.  And the next time I need something, I’ll just practice “localization” and go to my local hardware store.

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[tweetmeme]You just wonder how much of a beating the AT&T brand can take.  Once again, the company wasn’t up to the task of fielding orders for the new IPhone 4 and had to temporarily suspend sales because of all the errors buyers were encountering.  But, to be fair, so did Apple.

Like many IPhone users in New York – where reception and the dropped calls problem is getting so bad I’m thinking of buying a cell phone just for phone calls – I’m frustrated with the service.  AT&T has had three years to improve its service and hasn’t.  But this isn’t going to be story about AT&T, the company.

AT&T Franchise Knocks the IPhone

This is a report about how even AT&T’s franchises don’t believe in the IPhone.  I was walking on the street the other day and I passed an AT&T store.  Big letters on the sign over the door:  AT&T. Much signage inside the store:  AT&T.

IPhone

So far, so good.  I walked up to the counter and one of the salesman asked me with a smile, “How can I help you today?”  I told him about my problems with reception and asked him if he had any ideas about how I could make it better.  Maybe reception is stronger standing in the middle of Central Park or on top of a skyscraper.

His smile immediately turned sour.  “Oh, no, we don’t carry IPhones.  They don’t work.  You’ll have to go to an AT&T corporate store, if you want to buy one.”  What?

Hello, AT&T Corporate.  Have you sent any memos to your franchise stores telling them that it is unacceptable to knock the IPhone and that doing so will damage your brand?   And just why aren’t they required to sell IPhones?

I’m just an ordinary consumer.  So when I see an AT&T store I don’t distinguish between franchise and corporate.  The store advertises the AT&T brand.  And the sales clerks should be upholding the brand, otherwise tell them to go work for Verizon.

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If they can rebrand, so can I

[tweetmeme]If you’re a subscriber, you may have a noticed a change in the look of Write Speak Sell.  You would be right.  I have changed templates from the Red Essence to the Flexx theme, which, as it indicates, is a flexible theme with more options.

Why did I do this?  I advise clients on sharpening their brands.  But I felt my own was a little fuzzy with my old theme.  A tab in the navigation bar for “Business Writing” was just too generic.  My business has evolved over the past year and I’ve been gravitating to three focused offerings:  blog and web copy, employee engagement and branding.  Now even the term branding is a little broad, but it’s such a recognized term that I think people will get it.  The top three widgets with these services tell visitors right away what I do – and they are “above the fold.”  That is, they are visible even on the small screen of a laptop.

If I can get it working properly, I’ve also added a new podcast product called audioboo, which allows me to create podcasts on my IPhone and they are published directly to my blog.  Neat.  It’s a small technical problem that I will get worked out shortly.

My categories and blog role are now on my home page and I’ve added a search box. I still need to add content to my right sidebar on my home page because there is quite a bit of white space there.  I’m open to suggestions.

It’s a constant process – tweaking, trimming, adding to – and hopefully — improving a business.  That’s why I thought I’d share my process with you.  Any thoughts about how you’ve adapted and changed your brand or business model?  Would love to hear from you.

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[tweetmeme]Customers can become valuable brand advocates for your products and services, according to a McKinsey study.  I’m a firm believer that companies can leverage their own employees on social networks to advocate for their brands and I’ve written about that.  But the McKinsey study,  “Four ways to get more value from digital marketing,” is convincing in its point of view that traditional advertising and point-of-sale promotions, one-way channels to customers, are losing potency to the power of interactive communications with customers who then become your brand advocates.

Viral marketing gains new customers

Not surprising.  “Moving from a one-way, company-driven sales mentality to a two-way relationship with consumers requires core changes in the way marketers do business,” the study learned.  Digital technology has changed the way consumers make purchasing decisions.  Instead of asking friends and families for recommendations, consumers now read online reviews, compare features and prices on websites and discuss options on social networking sites.  This is a golden opportunity for companies to find out what customers are looking for and to respond to their needs directly one-to-one.

The term “marketing to the one” became a buzzword a few years back.  But now it has become a reality.  Among leading companies that have leveraged this two-way conversation are Comcast, Dell and American Express.  They constantly monitor what their customers are saying about their products and service. Smart companies are also revamping their websites and launching online promotions that engage their customers in a way that was impossible just a short time ago.

But most companies are, unfortunately, still mired in their old ways, spending most of their marketing spend on paid advertising reaching the many.  Digital marketers reverse this, focusing on a smaller core of engaged people who spread their message.

Inspiring customers to help stretch your marketing budgets

Back to customers as brand advocates.   Digital marketers let “customers do more of the heavy lifting as they decide what to look at, play with content and forward it to their online communities,” says McKinsey. I would call them brand advocates for the companies that treat them well and provide outstanding products and service.

Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary Vaynerchuk, in his book “Crush It,” offers a powerful example of the effectiveness of viral marketing.  For his wine business, he spent $7,500 to offer free shipping codes via three traditional advertising channels:  a billboard on the New Jersey Turnpike, direct mail, and radio.  The billboard brought in 170 orders, radio 240, and direct mail 300+.  Then, at no cost, he sent out a free shipping code via his Twitter account and received 1,700 orders in 48 hours.  No doubt, many of his followers retweeted the offer to their friends.  They became brand advocates for winelibrary.com.

Is your company engaging your employees and customers as brand advocates?  I would love to hear your stories.

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By Bea Fields

President, Bea Fields Companies, Inc.

[tweetmeme]Our Next Generation…Generation Y. You’ve heard that they don’t watch TV, and you’ve probably been told that they don’t read that much. Your research tells you that you can’t target them through MTV anymore, and you certainly can’t tell Gen Y what is cool. So how do you reach these 71 million “Millennials” that spend over 200 billion dollars annually and will soon replace the baby boomer generation as the largest percentage of the workforce? The answer is simple—you STOP marketing to them. Stop trying to wiggle your brand around so that it meets their needs. Just stop! Let me explain.

First, let’s look at who they are. As a baby boomer, I can tell you that this generation—sometimes called the “Connecteds”—are our own invention. We raised Gen Y to believe that they can do anything and be anything. We made their lives easy enough that they now believe they deserve to live first and work second. (How dare them!) So the first thing we have to do is stop being ticked off at our own creation and embrace the brilliance of this Gen Y community.

This is the most optimistic generation to ever walk the face of the planet. They absolutely believe that miracles are possible. They refuse to work a job that does not bring them a sense of joy. They care about the earth and servicing their community. They have watched their parents be downsized, laid off and fired…so they are skeptical about big business and entrepreneurial thinking is deeply ingrained in their DNA. In Gen Y, we have created the possibility for everything that we wanted for the world. So we must stop whining about them being entitled and embrace the power of this generation. Once we do that, we can then begin to take a closer look at who they are, what makes them tick, and what they want from our businesses.

Let’s look at who has been successful at building a brand to reach our next generation:

• Apple
• Jet Blue
• Trader Joes
• Jones Soda
• Mountain Dew
• In-N-Out Burger
• Red Bull

Here are just a few of the reasons why these companies are so popular with Generation Y:

• Cheap cost
• Good quality
• Fast service
• An “experience”

When Apple created the 99-cent download that took eight seconds to transact, they hit the nail on the head with Gen Y. Music is an experience, the quality is stellar, the cost is low, and the purchase happens instantly. What did Apple do right? They spoke directly to Gen Y and asked the question: What do you want?

So who gets Gen Y’s attention? Living in an age where information is everywhere and where everyone can reach them, the Gen Y community is VERY selective about who they listen to. Just look at their MySpace and Facebook accounts, and you’ll recognize that they get their information from one another—NOT from us, and certainly not from the media. And the information they get from each other is not in emails, which most of them don’t even touch anymore (I know you probably thought you were being hip with your 100 emails a day!). They text one another. They IM. They watch each other on YouTube. And sometimes they do all three at the same time! Most importantly, Gen Y does NOT care about what you have to say unless you have been endorsed by their friends. They care about what their community says, and they take each other and their network’s recommendations VERY seriously.

So taking that into account, how do you reach them? Well, understand that Gen Y is an “experience” culture. They do not want to be told what to like or what to do. They want to experience the world for themselves and pass their own judgment. They love to be in the trenches of life, and they want to be there with their friends. HERE is where you have to meet them if you want to be taken seriously and respected by this generation enough for them to buy from you:

* Concerts (Gen Y LOVES live music.)

* Extreme sporting events (skateboarding, snowboarding, BMX)

* Movies (mainstream as well as art-house)

* Hiking events (They love the outdoors)

* Video games and video game competitions (Cyber Athlete Professional League, GameCaster, Global Gaming League)

* Mashups (Weather Bonk, Where’s Tim Hibbard, Y! Mash, Sims on Stage)

* Social networking sites (Facebook, MySpace, Second Life, del.icio.us, DIGG)

* Tattoo parlors (36 percent of them have at least one tattoo)

Before you begin heading off in the direction of marketing to Gen Y, there is a major element we need to discuss, and that is how to build your brand on the inside so that you show respect to these men and women when you are talking with them as consumers and potential employees. These aspects MUST be a part of your brand…from the way you live inside your organization to the way you live in your community to the way you sell products and services:

Creativity – To be in demand for new, fresh ideas, divergent thinking and new solutions to old problems. To design environments to ensure those creative ideas get on the table. All ideas, no matter how bizarre, will be celebrated and no employees will be exempt from sharing their creativity with the company.

Integrity - Being fully committed to consistency of values, actions, principles, expectations and outcomes, with all stakeholders. With a focus on integrity, companies need to bea dedicated to a sense of honesty and truthfulness in regard to tjeor motivations. Companies will be scrutinized by the next generation of leaders based on how well you walk your talk in regards to our code of ethics.

Freedom in thinking - Next Generation Brands should respect the unique thinking philosophies and cultural norms of all stakeholders. A company will be challenged to be fully committed to leveraging this unique thinking in order to be the leader in your industry.

Innovation - To be dedicated to leveraging your creativity to bring new products and services to the marketplace which will improve efficiency and quality of life for all stakeholders.

Ongoing learning and development – Next Gen Brands need to be fully dedicated to providing the coaching and training necessary to maximize the true potential of every employee of your company. You will also be asked to be committed to offering ongoing learning and development programs to all stakeholders to help them make life and business easier, more profitable, and more productive. Your company will need to be dedicated to leveraging your training and development outreach programs to build stronger, more collaborative relationships with all stakeholders.

Transparency -To be dedicated to being a see-through organization. With this position, you are committed to open communication and meetings, answering tough questions directly, financial disclosure statements, information sharing, budgetary reviews and audits. You will be committed to full accountability to your leadership code of ethics and when you fall short of promises made to all stakeholders and the general public.

So what does all this mean to you? It means that you cannot directly market to them until you buy into them, until you value their perspective on life. So while other experts are out there giving you “tricks” to market to Gen Y, I’m here saying STOP marketing to them and START listening to them and honoring their core values. Hang out with them. Experience life with them. Respect them. If you do, their outlook on life will change you. You’ll begin to behave differently, take on some new values, and begin to live more yourself. When you do that, you’ll find your audience within this generation. Then talking “with” them, not “at” them will sell your business.

For more information on this topic, visit Next Generation Branding

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[tweetmeme]It took a perfect stranger to simplify my brand.  I mean that’s what I do for a living:  help individuals and companies with their brands – the words they use in telling their stories.

I was at a networking event last evening, and took the opportunity to do a little tweaking of my message as I circulated among the guests when I first walked in.  I tried a few versions.  Here is one of my openings:  “Hi, I’m Jeannette Paladino.  I’m a business writer.  I help individuals and companies to sharpen their brands and shape the key messages they communicate to their target audiences.”  Then I proceeded to tell the little group gathered around the bar that my focus was on writing web copy and blogs, branding and employee communications.

I'm a "word mechanic"

Oh, said one knowingly, “You’re a word mechanic.”  Bong.  Not wordsmith.  Word mechanic.  I love it.  I’m the mechanic who fixes the words people use so they roar into action like the motor of a fancy new car.  My tool box is filled with high-powered words.  I don’t need to use them all, just the ones that create clear, compelling copy.

My new friend had turned my brand into an image that clarified for him the perceived benefit I offered.  Once he understood, in his mind, what I do then he warmed up to the conversation.  “So, you write blogs,” he said.  He confessed that he was doing that for his own growing company and it just wasn’t a good use of his time.  Maybe I could help him out?   So, we exchanged business cards and he became a good prospect for my business.

It was a reminder for myself, and what I tell my clients – don’t over-complicate.  Keep it simple.

Let your clients and prospects imagine the possibilities of working together.

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This blog first appeared in Recessionwire

[tweetmeme]Most of us have heard so often that it’s important to have a personal brand that we’re sick of it. The overuse of the term is beginning to devalue it. I’m not a box of cereal; I’m a human being, you might say.

That is true. And it is increasingly difficult to find a differentiator as the competition for jobs and consulting assignments is so fierce. Maybe it’s because we’re looking at ourselves as a business. We’re using dull and dry terms to describe ourselves: team player, proven track record, top producer. They don’t exactly leap out and grab someone by the throat.

But a recent review in The New York Times of two young pianists got me thinking that we should be looking at it in a different way. The Times music critic began: “Many young classical musicians feel pressure to stand out.” Well, who doesn’t? It’s not just pianists; everyone in this tough economic climate is looking to stand out. But it was another sentence that really got my attention: “It is not enough to play an instrument – or sing or conduct – brilliantly. You have to search within yourself and define your artistic identity. Your performances should convey what you believe in, what excites you.”

I realized that same advice could be applied to business people or job seekers. It isn’t enough to be brilliant at what you do. What is it that makes you brilliant? Your performances – a presentation for a client, or a job interview – should reinforce your talents and core beliefs.

What’s missing in most personal brand statements is a sense of excitement. Throw away your pencil for a minute and think about what really excites you about what you do (or did). Did you accomplish something that still makes your heart sing? Tell your story to your spouse or a buddy. Bring passion to the telling. Then ask for their response. What words did you use? What about the story got them excited?

That’s your personal brand.

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[tweetmeme]Have you noticed – how could you miss it – that the familiar Google logo is nowhere to be seen on the search engine’s landing page?  Instead, a soft green Google logo, with a sports figure matching the day’s events at the Winter Olympics, has replaced the colorful one that about a billion searchers see each day.

If you’re a sports fan, you may love it.  But a lot of people actually hate it (OK, maybe my friend is not representative of the universe).  They want the familiar Google.  And, remember, not everyone is a sports fan.

But there is a larger issue here:  should a company tamper with its brand identity when it is the category leader?  That’s putting it mildly for Google.  Yet, we’ve seen damage inflicted on companies that tied their brand to a celebrity and/or a particular sport when things turned sour (read Accenture and Tiger Woods).

On the other hand, the Olympics generate a tremendous amount of excitement and pride in the athletes and their countries.  That can provide a “halo” effect for a company like Google.

So, what do you think?

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