Month: July 2019

Categories
Weekly Story

Your Video Doesn’t Have to be “High Quality

Earlier this morning, I shot a quick-tip video that (I think) has some good marketing advice.

I propped my phone over my computer monitor. Shot the 2:30 second video. I saved the video to my YouTube channel. And then linked to it in this email.

The entire process took less than five minutes and cost me $0.

Why’d I do it?

To prove a point: The quality of your content is more important than the “slickness” of your presentation.

My video is not professionally produced. It’s not slick. It’s not pretty. But it still contains valuable content.

Here’s a link to that video.

Please let me know what you think.  

Tom
MarketVolt

p.s. We help businesses figure out what they sell. Then we help them identify and connect with their target markets so people will listen to what you’re saying. If you want to discuss how to make it happen for your business, email me at tom@marketvolt.com. For no charge and no strings attached, we’ll discuss with you how you’re building email lists, generating new leads and generally finding and connecting with prospects.

p.p.s. If you like these emails, please do me this favor: Forward this to someone who might also enjoy it and encourage them to sign up for future emails on our website at MarketVolt.com.

Categories
Monday Mash-Up

Monday Mashup 209.07.29

Monday, July 29
MarketVolt’s Monday Mash-Up

Simple and Wise Writing Tips

Here’s a great information graphic with 19 tips to help you write better with fewer mistakes. Print this out and post it by your desk. You’ll be a better writer for doing so.  

Marketing Tips
This Column is Not What It Sounds Like

I came across a great column with this headline: “It’s Time to Start Sleeping With Your Customers.” Don’t worry. It’s G-rated. This column is all about getting to know your customers, getting “intimate” with them, understanding their emotions, pushing the right buttons. And it’s very good. Most marketers and sales people rely to much on logic to drive sales. Successful marketers tap emotion. 

Recommended Reading
Steal Like an Artist 

Thanks to my friend Mary Kutheis (MCK Coaching) for recommending that I read Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon. Here’s how the author describes the book’s big idea: “You are a mash-up of what you let into your life. Anyone can be creative if they surround themselves with the right influences, play nice, and work hard. I like that idea, and I like this book. 

Music and Movies
Recommending Rebecca

Rebecca Pidgeon is an American actress who is married to American playwright and screenwriter David Mamet. I learned of her years ago when I saw her in movies written and directed by Mamet. 

I highly recommend Mamet’s The Spanish Prisoner which stars Pidgeon, Campbell Scott, and Steve Martin. 

I learned recently that she is also an accomplished singer / songwriter. I recommend her 2011 album Slingshot. I also recommend her latest album, Sudden Exposure to Light, which was released last week. 

Quotable 

“We live in a world where we are taught from the start that we are thinking creatures that feel. The truth is we are feeling creatures that think.” 

– Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor, quoted in the great column cited above. 

Any reading, listening, quoting, resourcing that you think we should share? Send us a tip.

Until next time, enjoy the rest of this week and the weekend.

Tom

Categories
Monday Mash-Up

Lessons from myth-busting a crummy article

In my most recent Monday Mash-Up, I mentioned an article about B2B marketing that I hated.

The article was a collection of quick-tips from different “experts.” Here’s the first tip that annoyed me:

An appeal to emotion typically wins in B2C marketing. In other words, when marketing to consumers, a winning strategy includes developing emotional connections and backing them with rational bits. B2B, on the other hand, goes through a more in-depth screening process. Decision makers in businesses are logic-driven and are trusted to find and defend the best possible solutions.

I think this is B.S.

Yes, selling to consumers (B2C) is different than selling to businesses (B2B). And yes, businesses go through a more thorough logic-driven process of vetting a purchase.

But emotional triggers almost always lead a buyer to consider a purchase. That’s true with consumers. That’s true with the buyer in a business.

The best B2B marketers understand this. Appeal to the emotions. Trigger desire and interest. Then prove the case with proof, data and other bits of logic to close the deal.

The article got worse. Here’s the tip that really got my blood boiling: 

Tell Them How You’ll Make Their Business Better. A B2C campaign is very direct in that it shows how a company’s goods or services directly impact the consumer. A B2B campaign’s focus is one company impacting another to make the second company better. The campaign’s value proposition has to be in making it easier for the other company to be more profitable, organized or efficient, and how those attributes will convert into long-term sales and growth.

So here’s a dirty little secret about lots of people who work in lots of businesses: They’re not worrying about how to make the business better. They’re worrying about how to make their own life better, how to succeed in their own little bubble. 

That doesn’t mean their selfish. That doesn’t mean they don’t care about the company’s bottom line. It just means they focus on their lives, first.

Of course, their job is part of their life. So they may be very concerned with how to perform their job more efficiently, with less headache and hassle. But that’s not the same as worrying about the company’s bottom line and overall performance.

Here’s an example:

Our sales vice-president Pat Hawn once met with a prospect who handled email marketing for a B2B firm. The firm had 12 sales reps each with their own list of contacts.

The email marketer sent 12 separate copies of her newsletter each month — one each for every sales rep. Each email was “From” the sales rep. Each reply address was that sales rep’s address. Twelve emails for 12 reps.

Pat nodded. “That’s a hassle,” he said.

“I hate it,” she said. “It’s the worst part of my job. I wish I didn’t have to do it.”

Pat showed her how MarketVolt can automate the process, how she could send a single email with a list that combines all 12 reps’ contacts, and have the reps’ names and email addresses automatically merge into the “From” and “Reply” emails.

“One email for 12 sales reps,” Pat said. “Easy.”

The rep hugged him and signed up for our service.

Pat didn’t say a word about the company’s bottom line. He didn’t pitch how MarketVolt will make the company better.

He recognized the marketers emotional turmoil.

She hates the process. Can’t stand it. She craves an easier way. That’s all about emotion.

That’s all about helping her.

Sure, creating greater efficiency can help the company’s bottom line. But that’s not how Pat sold it, and that’s not why she was buying.

B2B buyers are driven by selfish desires and emotion. They want a more comfortable life. They want recognition and glory. They fear looking foolish or failing. That’s all emotion.

Understanding what motivates your prospects is key. If you assume emotion doesn’t matter, if you assume that the company’s bottom line is the driving motivator, you’re probably misreading your prospects.
 
Tom
MarketVolt

p.s. We help businesses figure out what they sell. Then we help them identify and connect with their target markets so people will listen to what you’re saying. If you want to discuss how to make it happen for your business, email me at tom@marketvolt.com. For no charge and no strings attached, we’ll discuss with you how you’re building email lists, generating new leads and generally finding and connecting with prospects.

p.p.s. If you like these emails, please do me this favor: Forward this to someone who might also enjoy it and encourage them to sign up for future emails on our website at MarketVolt.com.

Categories
Monday Mash-Up

Monday Mashup 2019.07.22

Monday, July 22
MarketVolt’s Monday Mash-Up

Marketing Guidance
There Are No Universal Truths in Content Marketing (Sort Of)

This is a great article. I encourage you to set aside a few minutes and read it. The key idea: “How you choose to approach content needs to differ depending on what you’re trying to accomplish.” The article goes on to outline different approaches for different goals. 

For the “Bad Advice” File
I Hate This Article So Much I Have to Share It

I came across this article from Forbes this morning. It’s a curated collection of tips from an expert panel asked to discuss how to build a B2B marketing campaign. The article is loaded with contradictory points and invalid advice. I’ll elaborate in the email I send on Wednesday. Meanwhile, take a look and let me know what you see. Can you tell what I found so annoying and wrong?

(p.s. Sorry… I try to keep this Mash-Up as positive as possible, and I generally only share content I think is strong. I made an exception in this case because sometimes we can learn from others’ mistakes.) 

Marketing Funnies
What Does “Disruptive” Mean? 

I met a guy last week who was raving about a new company that he said was “perfectly disruptive.” I hear about “disruptive” companies a lot. It’s supposed to be a compliment. But it may be the most overused cliche in the business world today. Here’s a funny cartoon and accompanying blog post that gets at this idea. 

Music Discovery
This Site Offers a Quick Way to Find New Music

When I’m looking to discover something new to add to my playlists, I go to AllMusic.com’s New Releases page.  I’ve written before about AllMusic.com. It’s a great resource for learning about artists and reading reviews about their releases. AllMusic reviews music in all genres. Music that doesn’t get reviewed elsewhere gets space on this site. I’ve discovered tons of great music here. The New Releases page is always a great place to start.

Quotable 

Emma Lazarus was born on this day in 1849. She was the American poet who wrote “New Colossus,” the poem on the base of Statue of Liberty. Here’s that poem: 

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Any reading, listening, quoting, resourcing that you think we should share? Send us a tip.

Until next time, enjoy the rest of this week and the weekend.

Tom

Categories
Weekly Story

How a Lying Airline Lost My Business

I used to love Southwest Airlines…

…until I caught Southwest Airlines in a lie.

In fact, I discovered that Southwest lies to me — and you — frequently.

It happens when you book flights online.

I was doing that last night — booking a flight for my wife and me.

I entered the locations, dates and number of passengers. Then I pressed “Enter.”

Southwest listed the available flights.

I spotted the flight I wanted (perfect times, decent price)…

…but, darn it, there was only “1 left,” Southwest told me.

I needed two tickets so “1 left” wouldn’t cut it.

Hey, wait a minute! I had entered the wrong number of passengers in the search form. I said “1” passenger, not “2.”

So I revised and resubmitted the search.

Lo and behold, the “1 left” label disappeared from the flight I preferred.

As a test, I resubmitted the search, this time for “4” passengers. No problem. Plenty of seats available on my preferred flight.

More tests. I searched again for just “1” passenger. No more “1 left” label. Then I cleared my browser history (no more cookies on my computer to let Southwest know I had previously visited and searched). Now the “1 left” label was back.

Let’s face it. This shouldn’t surprise us. I suspected those “1 left” notices were lies.

Southwest isn’t the only airline that does this. The airline industry is just one of many that pulls this trick.

Businesses like to create urgency and scarcity to drive sales.

But they don’t have to lie about it.

Sure, it may be a little white lie. But it’s a lie, nonetheless. So yesterday I proved the lie that I suspected, and I booked the flight with a different airline.

How will your customers react if they catch you resorting to little white lies and tricks to drive sales?

Tom
MarketVolt

p.s. We help businesses figure out what they sell. Then we help them identify and connect with their target markets so people will listen to what you’re saying. If you want to discuss how to make it happen for your business, email me at tom@marketvolt.com. For no charge and no strings attached, we’ll discuss with you how you’re building email lists, generating new leads and generally finding and connecting with prospects.

p.p.s. If you like these emails, please do me this favor: Forward this to someone who might also enjoy it and encourage them to sign up for future emails on our website at MarketVolt.com.

Categories
Monday Mash-Up

Monday Mashup 2019.07.15

Monday, July 15
MarketVolt’s Monday Mash-Up

Excellent Advice
Four Email Marketing Goals For Your Business, With Examples

This is a great article from MarketingProfs. Excellent advice with how-to examples. You have to sign up for a free MarketingProfs membership. But it’s easy to do that, and the content on their site is well worth it!

Amusing Enlightening Video
Generic Brand Video Mocks Messaging Cliches

This video is funny. And it probably will seem familiar. That’s the point. It demonstrates how easily marketers fall into familiar, cliched patterns to deliver their messages — how they rehash tired cliches, thinking they’re saying so much when they’re actually saying so little.  

More Email Marketing Tips
How to Get More Email Clicks

Here are some excellent tips about how to make your emails more engaging and increase clicks.

Recommended Viewing
If You Like the Beatles…

I recently saw a movie I liked: Yesterday. The premise: A struggling singer/songwriter in England gets hit by a bus. When he wakes up, everyone in the world — including Google — has no recollection of the Beatles, except him. When he performs a Beatles song for his friends, they think he has written a masterpiece. Guess what happens next? There’s nothing very deep about this film. The romantic stuff is predictable. There’s a twist at the end that makes some people cringe. But, still, I liked it, and I recommend it. 

If you’ve seen it, let me know what you thought. 

Quotable 

Russian author Anton Chekhov died on this day in 1904. He said this: 

Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.

Any reading, listening, quoting, resourcing that you think we should share? Send us a tip.

Until next time, enjoy the rest of this week and the weekend.

Tom

Categories
Weekly Story

Weekly Story – Taco Bell Hotel

I read about a hotel that promises a “fun, colorful and flavorful” and magical experience.

Set to open in August, the hotel began taking reservations online in June.

It sold out in two minutes.

Introducing The Bell: A Taco Bell Hotel and Resort in Palm Springs, California.

The Bell is just a temporary rebranding of the V Palm Springs Hotel. From August 8-12, the hotel will be all about Taco Bell.

A gift shop with Taco Bell apparel. A salon with Taco Bell-inspired nail art, fades and a braid bar. New menu items exclusively for hotel guests. A “happier hour” with “saucier snacks.”

Taco Bell promises the hotel will be an “extra serving of Taco Bell magic” that “is going to be hot. (Literally.)”

The hotel has 70 rooms. Rates start at $169/night. That’s 70 rooms for five nights in August (350 rooms overall) that sold out in two minutes.

Impressive.

This begs a question… What does Taco Bell sell?

If you answered, “Tacos,” you’ve missed the point.

If you answered, “Tacos and hotel rooms,” you’ve missed the point.

When announcing the hotel, Taco Bell’s Chief Global Brand Officer Marisa Thalberg said, “The Bell stands to be the biggest expression of the Taco Bell lifestyle to date.”

I like that quote because, you see, Taco Bell sells a lifestyle.

Taco Bell sells fun. Taco Bell sells colorful. Taco Bell sells happiness. Taco Bell sells saucy-ness.

Forget about the hotel for a minute and think about Taco Bell ads. Visit their website. Think about the image they promote, the customer they attract.

Sure, they’ve built their business dishing out tasty(?), Mexican-inspired fast-food.

But they’re selling a feeling. They’re selling a vibe. They’re selling “magic.” And they’re selling it well.

Think I’m crazy?

Then explain to me why 350 $169+ hotel rooms sold out in 120 seconds. It’s not because the Cheesy Gordita Crunch tastes good.

What do you sell?

Tom
MarketVolt

p.s. We help businesses figure out what they sell. Then we help them identify and connect with their target markets so people will listen to what you’re saying. If you want to discuss how to make it happen for your business, email me at tom@marketvolt.com. For no charge and no strings attached, we’ll discuss with you how you’re building email lists, generating new leads and generally finding and connecting with prospects.

p.p.s. If you like these emails, please do me this favor: Forward this to someone who might also enjoy it and encourage them to sign up for future emails on our website at MarketVolt.com.

Categories
Monday Mash-Up

2019.07.08

Monday, July 8
MarketVolt’s Monday Mash-Up

Marketing Tips
Encourage Customers to Review Your Business

Here’s a great article that describes how to use email to encourage customers to submit online reviews. Reviews can help you build your business — especially if you actively respond to the reviews. This article has some great tips about how to solicit reviews and how to respond to them. 

Presentation Advice
Ditch the Fancy Language and Buzzwords 

When it comes to public speaking and presentations, my friend Fred Miller knows his stuff. I love this post from his website in which he reminds us that “plain, simple language rules.” Great advice for public speakers and writers. 

Sales Tips
Cold-Call Emails that Worked

For some businesses, email pitches to cold leads can work well to fill the funnel (This is entirely different than email marketing to subscribed followers). This article has some excellent tips for writing cold sales emails and includes five examples of emails that worked.

Myth Busting
Eight Marketing Myths Debunked

Good stuff about social media, email, search marketing and more in this article.  

Quotable 

Businessman and former US Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller was born on this day in 1908. He said this: 

There are many other possibilities more enlightening than the struggle to become the local doctor’s most affluent ulcer case.

Any reading, listening, quoting, resourcing that you think we should share? Send us a tip.

Until next time, enjoy the rest of this week and the weekend.

Tom

Categories
Weekly Story

Weekly Story — Migrant news story

I saw something on the TV news this morning that annoyed me.

(What else is new?)

I’m sharing this with you not to spread the annoyance, but rather to deliver a business lesson.

The news headline: The number of asylum-seekers reaching the Mexico-US border has decreased over the last few months.

The analysis: Supporters of President Trump say the decrease is due to his immigration policies. Opponents counter that the flow of migrants always slows during the summer due to the sweltering heat.

End of news story.

Ugh!

So which is it? President Trump’s policies or a predictable, weather-related decrease?

We’re all left guessing.

Reminds me of too many business meetings I’ve witnessed.

Something meaningful happens in the business — good or bad.

One person or group offers an explanation. Another person or group counters with a different explanation.

No supporting data. We’re all left guessing.

With just a little bit of digging, the media could have provided evidence to support one explanation or another.

Show me migrant flow statistics for years past (especially years prior to President Trump’s rule). Do migrant populations truly decrease in the summer months?

Interview people in Guatemala or El Salvador who have considered migrating but have not yet done so. Are they hesitating because of U.S. policy, or are they planning to go once the weather cools?

Just don’t leave me guessing.

Same goes for business.

We’re constantly explaining things in our businesses — revenue trends, the success or failure of a marketing campaign, changes in customer retention rates.

Are the explanations guesses. Or are we backing are explanations with valid data?

Tom
MarketVolt

p.s. We help businesses identify and connect with their target markets so people will listen to what you’re saying. If you want to discuss how to make it happen for your business, email me at tom@marketvolt.com. For no charge and no strings attached, we’ll discuss with you how you’re building email lists, generating new leads and generally finding and connecting with prospects.

p.p.s. If you like these emails, please do me this favor: Forward this to someone who might also enjoy it and encourage them to sign up for future emails on our website at MarketVolt.com.

Categories
Monday Mash-Up

2019.07.01

Monday, July 1
MarketVolt’s Monday Mash-Up

Marketing Tips
How to Humanize Your Marketing and Share Brand Values

You’ve heard me say it many times before: Marketing should not be all about pitching your products and services. Here’s a great article that describes “How to Share Your Brand Values Via Email.“

This is an excellent read. 

Great Advertising
Shampoo Company Urges You Not to be a Head-Scratcher

I love this ad campaign from Head & Shoulders. It’s funny and effective. Rather than explain it, I’ll let you see for yourself. (Be sure to click on the thumbnail images below the main one so you see all the ads in the campaign). 

Marketing Resource
A Collection of Great Ads, Updated Weekly

I found that Head & Shoulders ad on a site called Ads of the World. This is a great resource for marketers to find great advertisements for entertainment and inspiration. Each week Clio highlights several can’t-miss ads, selected by their editors. 

Mindset Reset
You Have Permission to Fail
I love this article about “failing up.”  Not only should you embrace the learning that comes with failure, you should also be courageous enough to admit your failures. Your brand and your business will benefit from it. 

Happy Independence Day

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

– From The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America, ratified on July 4, 1776.

Any reading, listening, quoting, resourcing that you think we should share? Send us a tip.

Until next time, enjoy the rest of this week and the weekend.

Tom