To-Do List-itis

The last postcard in our campaign. It isn’t really about marketing. But if you’ll allow me, it’s about more than business. In his classic documentary, “Running Out of Time,” Robert Krulwich explores “The paradox of modern life … that we have more labor-saving devices but less free time.” That “in Japan, karoshi (“death from overwork”) is accepted as a valid cause of fatalities among middle-aged men” and the irony that the people in wealthiest nation on earth take two weeks of vacation, “contrasted with those in Europe, where 5-6 weeks of vacation per year are common.”

It’s about a philosophy. As a cancer survivor, as a survivor of sliding off I-94 at 70mph into a snow-filled ditch with my daughter, as a survivor of the 60’s, recessions, depressions, orphaned and grandfathered, I believe life is precious and short. I believe we are lucky to work in the creative arts – a field of great mirth and joy – with co-workers and clients who smile (you can even sign up for our humorgram!). We, at Sinard, try to bring some of that joy to every project, every day.

And so, while it is a false promise to suggest that your vacation time will increase, your blood pressure will go down and you’ll have more free time if you work with us, perhaps one of these things will happen, if just a little. At very least, you’ll know your to-do list will be in the trusted hands of world’s only Licensed Social Media Therapists!

For more about our newly-concluded “Fear of” campaign, featuring Blogophobia, Facebookitis and the rest, go to www.sinard.com/treatment.

Dissociative Catalog Identity Disorder

We make both kinds of catalogs: gorgeous print catalogs (go to your nearest Rainbow Play Systems dealer and pick one up!), and equally gorgeous and effective websites, including eCommerce sites with thousands of SKU’s.

They are not the same. Where we put tremendous thought and effort into the style, look and feel of a print catalog, that becomes the point of departure for the web version.

Layout/Design

Print projects can be created in a huge variety of sizes, but that size is determined at the outset by the designer (on advice from sales, marketing and consumers). Once printed, it won’t change: what’s designed is exactly what the customer sees. Web designers, on the other hand, have no control over what sort of monitor people are going to be viewing on. 1280 x 1024? Smaller? Larger? iPhone? 960? Wider? Will the screen tend toward blue? Green? Red? This is much closer to Television design, where students were taught to memorize the National Television Standards Commission standards (NTSC) with the pneumonic: “Never Twice the Same Color.”

Ecommerce Usability

Ecommerce design is at the mercy of a thousand technological and usability contingencies which need to be factored in before the first graphic is made.  And of course, since websites are active, we have an extra metric – time. If you want your ecommerce site to have a full page Black Friday graphic, make sure you tell your designer when he’s making wireframes in April.

Interactivity

In a print catalog, information design is all about optimizing a classic linear form – table of contents up front, content in a straight-forward order, index, the end. But with a website linearity is out the window. Your customer may want to learn about ice cream by flavor, calories, size, location … multiple entry-points give prospects the way they prefer to get to information they deem critical. Managing and designing information in a way that gives viewers constant, clear, opportune options is the most difficult part of web design. Your prospect will give you only moments to orient themselves before they type in your competitor’s URL.

Creating your ecommerce site with an understanding of how people search allows for immediate client satisfaction, minimal frustration, and maximizes the sales funnel effect – the information channel which leads from the homepage to the Buy button. Because unlike a print catalog, which at best refers you to a website or phone number, your website should be making sales.

If you’re a very small company that has simply moved your print catalog online as a pdf, we can help. We have a friend who put his entire several-hundred page catalog on the web — as is — with “page-turn” effects. He’s gone through marketing media therapy. His sales are better now.

Dulliosis

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Everything said above about catalogs must be applied to the website as a whole. But it is true that the most focus goes to the homepage, and the design that flows from it. There are many studies showing how people react to various layouts and designs – what works, what doesn’t. All newspapers have headlines and columns. The familiarity makes for ease-of-use.

But familiar doesn’t have to be “foolishly consistent,” ie., dull. Far too many sites are, in another word, staid. Now especially, as the worlds of computer monitors and TVs merge, motion media, such as animation and short-short videos, are more important than ever. Video remains the most effective, powerful medium in current use. Slide shows are better than nothing, but too many people that should really have meaningful motion, don’t.

That doesn’t mean you have to turn your homepage into something like the “The Daily Prophet” in Harry Potter (although that would be cool). There is rich, fertile ground between Google’s homepage and Avatar. But should you be that person who wants to be the artist, iconoclast, eccentric or maverick, we could make your site round, or triangle, or voice-controlled.

Or not. Because in communications there is something called the “bandwagon effect.” In art, the same flaw is called “derivative.” That is to say, there’s nothing wrong with your design following conventional standards – because they work for most people.

In either case, be you innovator or not, if you or someone you love has Dulliosis, Dissociative Catalog Identity Disorder, or other Social Media Malady, call us. After all, as “the world’s only Licensed Social Media Therapists”, it is our duty to keep our public informed!

For more about the “Fear of” campaign, featuring Blogophobia, Facebookitis and the rest (appearing weekly 9/27 – 11//15) go to www.sinard.com/treatment

Whether it’s on a DVD, TV or the web, when you put out that brand new video, the last thing you want is your audience thinking: “This looks cheap.” “My kid could make that.” “What are they even selling?” “I don’t get it.”

What you want your audience to think is, “I’m going to forward this to all my friends.”

What they want…  isn’t.

These two extremes – under-producing with lack of concept and over-producing with too much concept – might seem like two very different problems, but what they both share is a disconnection with their audience; usually based on a miscalculation about what people want.

When you’re coming up with a new campaign, the question always is, “what will my prospect/client/audience respond to?” And you always think of the wants first. Your audience wants something from you.

• Testimonials from satisfied customers
• Demonstrations that prove the product
• Pricing that competes with the other brands
• How-tos that make it look easy
• a 30-minute talking head from the Chief Engineer in front of jungle wallpaper (okay, we established they don’t want that)

And the list goes on.

What they really want are benefits, trust, confidence – a combination of rational and emotional appeals. What you want is to promote your brand, your differentiation, your product! You find success where the two intersect.

But don’t just take it from us. All one really needs to know about marketing strategy is this: “the most important characteristic of creative and effective advertising [is] that it [elicits] positive feelings in the viewer related to their self-image.”*

In other words, it’s an emotional response that makes a new customer. Sure, you need to put up the web address and the introductory price and the closest dealer, but none of those are going to matter unless you make your audience feel something.

Here’s a quick quiz. Taco Bell experienced double-digit growth as a result of a campaign featuring:

• A massive, nation-wide sale
• Gorgeous images of their tantalizing offerings
• A talking Chihuahua with a Mexican accent

Maybe that was a fluke. Let’s try another one. Taco John’s experienced double-digit growth as a result of a campaign featuring:

• A massive, nation-wide sale
• Gorgeous images of their tantalizing offerings
• A monkey riding a dog delivering burritos

What do dogs and monkeys have to do with tacos? Nothing (except that they’ll both eat them, in a pinch). But the ads were funny and different and cute. People loved them. And sales went up – double digits.

But enough about tacos.

So you want to make a video that sticks with people. What should it look like? Where does it go? And how much does it cost? With 30 years experience in award-winning production, we could write a book (and maybe we should!). Of course, creating a concept that’s going to deliver that emotional hook to an audience is going to be different for every client, but if you look at the viral video phenomenon you’ll notice a few trends. People tend to have strong reactions to videos that show one of four things: Something incredibly funny, amazing, cute, or awful. Most of you won’t be interested in the Awful category, but the other three qualities are what you find in the videos that really make the rounds. These are qualities that inspire emotional reactions. So whether you’re looking to simply step up your commercial game or aiming to make the next Will It Blend?, your first brainstorming session has got to plan ahead for the watercooler conversation.

If you think you or someone you love is suffering from symptoms of Videoitis or another Marketing Malady, get in touch, or follow along as we continue examining Media Maladies during our campaign over the next few weeks.

This is certainly true of our latest campaign – for ourselves. Our “Fear of” campaign deals with maladies called “Blogophobia,” etc.,  and exhorts treatment by “the worlds only Licensed Social Media Therapists” – us! We hope our prospects find it clever, amusing and relevant, as we’ve directed it squarely at the critical pain-points we’ve worked to overcome for our clients; those pain-points being:

▪ improper use (or absence) of social media, including blogs, Facebook, Facebook Places, Foursquare, Twitter, etc.

▪ inappropriate treatment and use of video

▪ poor translation of sales materials from print to web and vice-versa

▪ ineffective or just plain dull websites, lacking a “you” focus or a sales funnel

Over the course of the next six weeks we’ll post companion pieces to the campaign, elaborating on these pain points with examples and advice that we hope might get you thinking about your own marketing strengths and weaknesses. And we promise, you won’t feel a thing…

Part One: Blogophobia & Facebookchondria

Is your social media marketing working? Is it on a horse? Old Spice, using “two new TV spots, and the online response videos, [sent sales] up a whooping 107%” (read the article here). Best Buy and Target use Twitter and Facebook for brand loyalty and coupon outlets.

But what if you’re not a Fortune 500 company or not in B2C? What if you’re a small retailer or Business-to-Business company? The trick is which social media? For whom? How does it tie in to your larger marketing plan?

For example, Twitter is an absolute no-brainer for every restaurant on earth that has regulars and specials. It’s certainly helped us track down the food carts that have premiered in downtown Minneapolis this summer.

And B2B? We are extremely proud of one of our own success stories: our work for Creative Water Solutions. We created a blog (which they maintain) that allows them to demonstrate their expertise in spa and pool water science at a level of detail that a traditional campaign could never reach. Combined with a multiple channel marketing push and excellent PR, “WaterBlogged” established CWS as the go-to experts for scientific information in their field (a field that’s sorely lacking in good science). The blog has been so successful that their competitors are trying to ape their jargon and keywords. Fortunately for CWS, it’s too late for the competition – they are well on their way to becoming North America’s most trusted source for accurate information in their category.

And so if you think you might have a Social Media Malady, please share them with us, After all, as “the world’s only Licensed Social Media Therapists” J, it is our duty to keep our public informed! So we’ll be examining several Media Maladies during our campaign, especially over the next few weeks. In the meantime, the comments section is open, and the doctor is in…

For more about the “Fear of” campaign, featuring Blogophobia, Facebookchondria and more (appearing weekly 9/27 – 11//10) go to www.sinard.com/treatment.

In some marketing departments, they think everyone in sales is named Willy Loman or Shelly “The Machine” Levine. Of course, these same sales people may see themselves as Dale Carnegie or Tony Robbins. The key for management is to remind each group that they weren’t hired to make great theater or start a self-help industry. They are, for better or worse, partners in the same enterprise, critical players on the same team.

The teams start off from the same places – product or service FAB, audience definitions, strategy and leads – but they diverge from there. Marketers pick the appropriate medium to drive Attention, Interest, Decision, Action and Retention (AIDA). Sales people, however, deal with people, not media.

Depending on the product, service and distribution channel, a sales person may use many of the following terms, but all Sales people must decide – usually in moments – whether marketing has succeeded, and whether they are talking to a:

• Suspect: an unqualified lead – not yet attentive or interested

• Opportunity, Contact, Call Back or Prospect: a Qualified lead that has some familiarity, but has not decided to buy “our” brand

After the Pitch, Proposal, Assumptive Close, Trial Close or just plain Close (failure of the aforementioned not-withstanding), there is a:

• New Customer: someone who has purchased, but not re-purchased

• Client, Established Customer: repeat business

This is quantitatively and qualitatively different than marketing.

Can’t we all just get along?

What can be confusing is that there are many other similarities between the two. Both the successful sales person and successful marketer wishes to gain trust; both try to handle objections. But only the sales person presents and closes sales. Both sales and marketing work to retain clients. But few marketers get a person-to-person earful when a marketer has over-promised.

And this is critical: Marketing, along with operations, needs to listen to sales, to know what worked and what didn’t. Do sales people hear what they want to hear? Do sales people sell to their strengths? Are they human? Of course, and that’s why marketing needs to balance sales feedback with up-to-date demographic and psychographic information. This is usually where problems arise – when marketing finds facts that will mean new markets, transitions, uncomfortable changes. But in the long run, the two must work hand-in-glove, for mutual improvement, and improvement of the bottom line.

Why Brands Should Embrace Technological Change