Month: April 2020

I read a great blog post this morning called Brand communications in time of crisis. 

I encourage you to read it. 

This crisis creates unique challenges for marketers. 

How do you move your business forward without offending? 

How do you strike the right tone in your marketing? 

How do you connect with prospects who are more difficult to reach and more on edge?

What role does your business play in helping people during the pandemic and beyond? 

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about these questions. 

I like the perspective in the blog post. 

            

---

Want to chat about any or all of the above? Want to explore how to reshape your business story to fit the reshaped landscape? 

Sign up for a Story Assessment.

I’m offering free, 30-minute web conferences to review your business story. I will meet with you via Zoom and review how you’re telling your business story — on your website, social media, and other channels. Then, I’ll recommend how to make it work better during these strange days.  

I have a limited number of slots open on my calendar for these sessions. Please visit my calendar to book a time that works for you.

Thanks!

Tom
314-529-1431
tom@StoryUpMarketing.com
www.StoryUp Marketing 

When I was a kid, some neighborhood vandals pulled the old TP-gag in my yard. They tossed a few rolls of paper in the trees and stormed off into the night. The next morning, we woke to a maple, sweet gum, and two oaks covered in Charmin-soft tinsel.

My dad howled (no, not with laughter). He sent my brother and me outside with a ladder and rakes to pull the TP from the trees. We retrieved a small mountain of torn tissue and lugged it to the trash, muttering the whole time about our rotten luck.

I was thinking of that pile of TP the other day while searching the internet for someone — anyone? — who would sell me a few rolls.

Can you believe I once tossed mountains of TP into the trash, I thought?

Long before the Great TP Shortage of 2020, the author David Sedaris grew up in North Carolina and knew a boy whose father did this when his house was TP’d:

He sent the boy out with a ladder and a rake to collect the TP. He instructed the boy to spread the wet TP (it had rained overnight) on the lawn. Once the TP dried, the boy spooled it back onto those cardboard tubes and placed the rolls in the bathroom closet.

I first heard David Sedaris tell that story before the pandemic. I thought, “That father is crazy!”

But times have changed. And now I think he’s an inspiration.

My family woke to TP in our yard and saw a disaster. Anger, grumbling, cursing our fate followed. There was nothing good that came out of it.

That father woke to TP in his yard and he saw opportunity. He was grateful to have a few rolls of free TP.

These are strange days. Pick your metaphor. For me, it kind of feels like the whole world has been TP’d.

The question for us is how we react. Do we grumble and curse our fate? Do we assume nothing good can come of this?

Or do we find opportunity, reflect on reasons to be grateful, count our blessings and push forward?

---

This is a good time to discover new ways to grow your business. If you want prospects to tune in, stay tuned and act, you have to deliver better business stories…

Sign up for a Story Assessment.

I’m offering free, 30-minute web conferences to review your business story. I will meet with you via Zoom and review how you’re telling your business story — on your website, social media, and other channels. Then, I’ll recommend steps you can take to help prospects and customers tune in and act.

I have a limited number of slots open on my calendar for these sessions. Please visit my calendar to book a time that works for you.

Thanks!

Tom
314-529-1431
tom@StoryUpMarketing.com
www.StoryUp Marketing 

I was browsing through my swipe file again — searching for some marketing inspiration to share with you. 

I came across an ad I loved when it ran in 2009. I love it today. 

The ad for POMx (“The Antioxidant Superpill”) ran in investment and money-management magazines in early 2009. That was smack in the middle of the “Great Recession” when investors were feeling the pain of a huge market downturn. 

The ad’s headline: “Live Long Enough to Watch Your 401(k) Recover.” 

I know lots of you don’t consider your 401(k) and other investments a laughing matter right now (or in early 2009). That’s what makes the ad so great. 

The reason people get the joke (even those offended by it): They are worried that it will take a very, very, very long time for their investments to recover. 

So with a little wink and a chuckle, POM says, “I get what you’re going through.” 

That’s empathy. That’s rapport-building. 

But that headline goes deeper. POM is not selling against that financial worry. It’s not promising to fix your finances or cure the economy. 

It’s tapping into a different worry: Dying too soon. 

Or if you want to flip it around and frame it as a wish, the ad taps your desire to live a very, very very long time. 

So with one simple headline, POM says, in effect, “This downturn is a major drag. We know it will take you a while to climb back and realize the brighter future. We’ll help you 

I ran an email marketing company for 19 years until we sold it in January to Benchmark.

When telling people about our software, I loved to share the story of a prospect who hugged our sales guy when he told her about a certain feature.

The feature: Automatically generate different sender names, reply addresses, and messages — for a single mailing — depending on the recipient receiving the mailing.

The benefit: Before our software, she created 12 versions of the same email, one for each sales rep at her company, and sent the email 12 times. The first mailing went to “Sales Rep 1’s” list with his name as the sender and his reply address. The second mailing went to “Sales Rep 2’s” list with her name as the sender and her reply address. And so forth…

With the new feature, our prospect could have one list, one mailing and one send. The software did the rest — inserting the correct sales rep for each recipient in the from and reply fields. Lots of time saved.

That’s a cool story about features and benefits.

But the story continues:

When she hugged our sales guy, she said, “This will change my life.” And she meant it.

Every week, she dreaded those hours she would spend juggling those lists and managing those sends. It stressed her out. It was a drag.

This software transformed her experience. She felt relieved. She felt a burden lifted.

I’m not telling you this to brag about MarketVolt software (although that truly is a great feature; and if it piques your interest, you can contact Pat Hawn at Benchmark/MarketVolt who would be happy to tell you more).

I share the story to reveal a critical marketing lesson.

The best business stories go beyond the standard “benefits” pitch and reveal transformations.

We learn in Marketing 101 to lead with benefits, not features. But too often, we stop there.

We describe benefits in impersonal terms:

We use phrases like “save time” or “eliminate waste” or “increase ROI.”

All of that is important. But this is more important: How does the prospect or customer feel when they experience your product or service?

The story I told is fine when I say, “The feature saves time and eliminates waste.”

But it’s far more powerful when I describe how it affects the customer who uses the product:

“That feature will wipe away all the headache and hassle and stress you feel when you have to juggle all those lists and sends.”

So, yes, know the benefits and talk about them. That’s way better than talking only about features.

But if you really want prospects and customers to tune in, stay tuned and act, craft stories that reveal how your products and services transform the lives of those who use them.

If you want to learn how to craft better business stories…

Sign up for a Story Assessment.

I’m offering free, 30-minute web conferences to review your business story. I will meet with you via Zoom and review how you’re telling your business story — on your website, social media, and other channels. Then, I’ll recommend steps you can take to help prospects and customers tune in and act.

I have a limited number of slots open on my calendar for these sessions. Please visit my calendar to book a time that works for you.

Thanks!

Tom
314-529-1431
tom@StoryUpMarketing.com
www.StoryUp Marketing

I ran an email marketing company for 19 years until we sold it in January to Benchmark.

When telling people about our software, I loved to share the story of a prospect who hugged our sales guy when he told her about a certain feature.

The feature: Automatically generate different sender names, reply addresses, and messages — for a single mailing — depending on the recipient receiving the mailing.

The benefit: Before our software, she created 12 versions of the same email, one for each sales rep at her company, and sent the email 12 times. The first mailing went to “Sales Rep 1’s” list with his name as the sender and his reply address. The second mailing went to “Sales Rep 2’s” list with her name as the sender and her reply address. And so forth…

With the new feature, our prospect could have one list, one mailing and one send. The software did the rest — inserting the correct sales rep for each recipient in the from and reply fields. Lots of time saved.

That’s a cool story about features and benefits.

But the story continues:

When she hugged our sales guy, she said, “This will change my life.” And she meant it.

Every week, she dreaded those hours she would spend juggling those lists and managing those sends. It stressed her out. It was a drag.

This software transformed her experience. She felt relieved. She felt a burden lifted.

I’m not telling you this to brag about MarketVolt software (although that truly is a great feature; and if it piques your interest, you can contact Pat Hawn at Benchmark/MarketVolt who would be happy to tell you more).

I share the story to reveal a critical marketing lesson.

The best business stories go beyond the standard “benefits” pitch and reveal transformations.

We learn in Marketing 101 to lead with benefits, not features. But too often, we stop there.

We describe benefits in impersonal terms:

We use phrases like “save time” or “eliminate waste” or “increase ROI.”

All of that is important. But this is more important: How does the prospect or customer feel when they experience your product or service?

The story I told is fine when I say, “The feature saves time and eliminates waste.”

But it’s far more powerful when I describe how it affects the customer who uses the product:

“That feature will wipe away all the headache and hassle and stress you feel when you have to juggle all those lists and sends.”

So, yes, know the benefits and talk about them. That’s way better than talking only about features.

But if you really want prospects and customers to tune in, stay tuned and act, craft stories that reveal how your products and services transform the lives of those who use them.

If you want to learn how to craft better business stories…

Sign up for a Story Assessment.

I’m offering free, 30-minute web conferences to review your business story. I will meet with you via Zoom and review how you’re telling your business story — on your website, social media, and other channels. Then, I’ll recommend steps you can take to help prospects and customers tune in and act.

I have a limited number of slots open on my calendar for these sessions. Please visit my calendar to book a time that works for you.

Thanks!

Tom
314-529-1431
tom@StoryUpMarketing.com
www.StoryUp Marketing

My friend Mary Kutheis shared with me a great marketing email, thinking I would want to share it with everyone on my list.

She was right.

The email came from Touchnote, a greeting card service that allows you to design and compose cards online that they print and mail.

Mother’s Day is a busy time for Touchnote. And before that holiday, they send promotional emails reminding customers to send cards to Mom and Grandma.

What happens though, if you’re a Touchnote subscriber who has lost a mother or grandmother? Those promotional emails might sting.

So Touchnote sent the following email to its subscribers:

“I’m getting in touch as I know that Mother’s Day reminders can be really difficult for some people. So, with Mother’s Day coming up, we want to give everyone a chance to opt-out of receiving emails about it.

“Simply click the link here to change your preferences and we’ll keep you updated with everything else, like normal.

“Have a lovely day.”

That’s excellent!

Marketing works best when you understand how your prospects and customers feel.

If you can connect with their feelings, if you can show that you get it, prospects and customers will trust and like you more. Prospects and customers will value what you sell more. Prospects and customers will do more business with you.

This email from Touchnote didn’t pitch anything. But still, it stands out as great marketing.

If you want your marketing to work best, you need to tune up your business story. With a well-tuned business story, prospects and customers will tune in, stay tuned, and act.

If you want to learn how to craft better business stories…

Sign up for a Story Assessment.

I’m offering free, 30-minute web conferences to review your business story. I will meet with you via Zoom and review how you’re telling your business story — on your website, social media, and other channels. Then, I’ll recommend steps you can take to help prospects and customers tune in and act.

I have a limited number of slots open on my calendar for these sessions. Please visit my calendar to book a time that works for you.

Thanks!

Tom
314-529-1431
tom@StoryUpMarketing.com
www.StoryUp Marketing 

I once read an interview with a top dog at Disney who described why they invest big-time in sidewalk gum removal.

Disney employs people who spend their entire day picking up gum from the sidewalks.

The idea: If a guest steps in that gum, they will interrupt their fun day, sit on a bench in the hot sun, spend several minutes picking that gum from their shoe and grumble the entire time.

It will ruin their Magic Kingdom experience. And that may keep them from returning or referring.

That top dog said Disney considers gum pickup a critical marketing activity.

Right on, Disney.

Here’s the lesson:

Marketing is everything, and everything is marketing.

We often think of marketing only as the messages we transmit on websites, social media, sales letters, and other channels.  

Sure, those things matter — a lot!

But everything you do  sends a message. Everything aspect of your operations tells prospects and customers…

…either you understand and care about them…

…or you don’t.

That guy who’s picking gum from his shoe is thinking, “You don’t…”

Your customers and prospects are the stars of your business story.

Understand what they want.

Understand what frustrates them.

Craft marketing messages that show you understand and deliver for them.

Operate in ways that show the same.

Then they’ll stick with you. They’ll tell others. And your business will thrive.

If you want your business to thrive, you need to tune up your business story. With a well-tuned business story, prospects and customers will tune in, stay tuned, and act.

If you want to learn how to craft better business stories…

Sign up for a Story Assessment.

I’m offering free, 30-minute web conferences to review your business story. I will meet with you via Zoom and review how you’re telling your business story — on your website, social media, and other channels. Then, I’ll recommend steps you can take to help prospects and customers tune in and act.

I have a limited number of slots open on my calendar for these sessions. Please visit my calendar to book a time that works for you.

Thanks!

Tom
314-529-1431
tom@StoryUpMarketing.com
www.StoryUp Marketing

Here is a great ad that I found on Facebook last week:  

It’s that first line that makes it so great: “Tired of clients breaking the beautiful website you slaved over?” 

That is a great question, a great business story. 

That inspires prospects to tune in, and they continue reading (they stay tuned). 

Lesson 1: Your business story is NOT a single epic. It’s a thousand little stories. And some of the best are 10 words (like this ad’s opening line) or fewer. 

Lesson 2: Your business story is about your prospects and customers. Not you or your product. Beaver Builder makes great web publishing tools. But that’s not what they say to open the ad. The star of the story is the prospect — web developers. And this ad’s story perfectly reflects web developer’s frustrations.

That’s all I have for you now, but I’ve got a few slots on my calendar if you want to dig deeper…

If you want to learn how to craft better business stories so prospects tune in and stay tuned…

Sign up for a Story Assessment.

I’m offering free, 30-minute web conferences to review your business story. I will meet with you via Zoom and review how you’re telling your business story — on your website, social media, and other channels. Then, I’ll recommend steps you can take to help prospects and customers tune in and act.

I have a limited number of slots open on my calendar for these sessions. Please visit my calendar to book a time that works for you.

Thanks!

Tom
314-529-1431
tom@StoryUpMarketing.com
www.StoryUp Marketing 

Back in the day, when people used to go on vacation, my mom, dad, brother and I packed up the station wagon and drove west in search of a ghost town.

Actually, we were headed to some national parks in Wyoming and Montana. But I insisted we detour.

The brochure I grabbed at the Stuckey’s on I-80 said the ghost town was “can’t miss.”

I’ll spare you the details and tell you only this: The brochure lied.

Fast-forward 45 years: I was browsing my swipe file (my collection of great ads and copywriting) in search of some marketing inspiration for you.

I found an ad from Norwegian Cruise Lines with the following headline:

Finally, A Caribbean Cruise as Good as Its Brochure

That’s a great headline.

When I read it, the sad ghost town memories came pouring back: Reading the brochure. The anticipation. The disappointment. The sense of betrayal.

Raise your hand if you ever felt betrayed by a travel brochure that lied. The copywriter who penned the cruise line ad knows how you feel.

And that’s what makes the ad great.

That headline says, in effect, “I know you’ve felt betrayed by travel brochures that over-promise and under-deliver. You won’t feel that way with us.”

Two important marketing lessons here: 

1) Don’t break your marketing promises (I was 10 when the ghost town broke its promise; I haven’t forgotten). 

2) Your business story works best when it is not about the business. Great business stories are about prospects and customers — their aspirations, fears, frustrations and feelings.

Do you know how your prospects and customers feel — what they crave, what they fear, what inspires them, what bugs them?

We’ll help you figure that out. And then we can help you craft business stories that reflect their feelings…

…so they’ll tune in and act. 

The help starts here: Sign up for a Story Assessment.

I’m offering free, 30-minute web conferences to review your business story. I will meet with you via Zoom and review how you’re telling your business story — on your website, social media, and other channels. Then, I’ll recommend steps you can take to help prospects and customers tune in and act.

I have a limited number of slots open on my calendar for these sessions. Please visit my calendar to book a time that works for you.

Thanks!

Tom
314-529-1431
tom@StoryUpMarketing.com
www.StoryUp Marketing

I know a guy who can import surgical masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE) from Asia to the USA.

He can get pallets of the stuff, and he’s trying to figure out where and how to sell it.

He’s not a price-gauger. (Some profiteers are selling masks for $15 or more!) He wants to sell the PPE at fair prices.

He wants to focus on small and mid-sized businesses that want PPE for their employees or to resell to consumers.

We discussed the story he’ll share with such businesses.

Owners of businesses that are still open worry for their employees’ and customers’ safety. Those who want masks fear they’ll be shut out, stuck at the back of the line as hospitals and governments clog a dysfunctional supply chain.

Anxiety and fear are driving demand. The PPE vendor understands this.

But, he told me, he doesn’t want to create a “fear-rush.”

Fear. It’s a prickly subject for many marketers.

“Fear monger” is an insult.

But fear is not always a rotten fish that marketers use to slap prospects’ faces.

People have aspirations. People have fears. Aspirations AND fears drive buying decisions.

I told the PPE vendor:

There’s nothing wrong with marketing to people’s fear if what you are doing to address that fear is honest and legitimate.

Shady sales people trade on people’s fear to get them to do something that’s not in their best interest — such as pay $15 for a mask, or buy something that doesn’t actually work. That’s how I define “fear mongering.”

In this case, though, you have the PPE people need. It is real. It works. It’s fairly priced.

They call it personal PROTECTIVE equipment for a reason. It protects you from something you don’t want, something you fear.

There’s nothing wrong with speaking to that fear. In fact, you must if you want buyers to tune in.

This is not just a COVID-19 thing.

A lot of business people feel like there’s something unethical, shady, or just kind of yucky about discussing prospects fears and frustrations.

Again (this is important so I’m repeating it here): There’s nothing wrong with marketing to people’s fear if what you are doing to address that fear is honest and legitimate.

Before I built the StoryUp Marketing web page, I spoke to dozens of business people who represent my “target market.” I asked them to share aspirations for their businesses and frustrations/fears. I boiled it down to four key ones that are at the top of my site.

My prospects are:

• Tired of seeing prospects tune out and move on (frustration/fear).
• Wishing people would think “I get it” and say “I want it” the first time you tell them about your products and services (aspiration).
• Wondering why those “can’t-miss” marketing tactics keep missing the mark (frustration/fear).
• Craving better leads and more customers (aspiration).

Those frustrations and fears are common. They’re real. And businesses that address their frustrations/fears will outperform those that ignore them.

I offer an honest, fair way for businesses to realize those aspirations and overcome those frustrations/fears.

That’s not fear-mongering. That’s problem-solving.

The problem-solving starts here: Sign up for a Story Assessment.

I’m offering free, 30-minute web confereces to review your business story. I will meet with you via Zoom and review how you’re telling your business story — on your website, social media, and other channels. Then, I’ll recommend steps you can take to help prospects and customers tune in and act.

I have a limited number of slots open on my calendar for these sessions. Please visit my calendar to book a time that works for you.

Thanks!

Tom
314-529-1431
tom@StoryUpMarketing.com
www.StoryUp Marketing 

Last week, I was pitching my business to a guy who knows some things and let me know it.

He wanted more prospects, sales and profits.

I told him how StoryUp Marketing helps businesses tune up their stories so prospects and customers tune in and act.

The key, I said: Focus on why customers buy from you, not what products and services you deliver.

He cut me off. “Yeah, yeah. I get that ‘Why…’ stuff,” he said.

That stung a little, but no big deal.

I asked the guy, “Why do your customers buy from you?”

He knew, and he told me.

But then we looked at his website and…

…None of that stuff he just told me was anywhere to be seen on the site’s front page.

In marketing (and, really all things), there’s a big difference between getting the idea, and implementing the idea.

It’s easy to get an idea.

Read a book with a good idea and say, “I get it!”

Hear some tips on a podcast and say, “I get it.” 

Attend some expert’s webinar and say, “I get it.” 

Read this email and say, “I get it.” 

You and most others who say that are not lying.

But then what? 

Will you and all the others step beyond, “I get it,” to say, “I’ll DO it.” And how many of you will follow-through and know what to do?

That’s why StoryUp Marketing exists. If you want prospects and customers to tune in and act, we know what to do (tune up your story) and we know how to do it. 

We move you from “I get it” to “We did it!”

The first step is free: Sign up for a Story Assessment.

I’m offering free, 30-minute web confereces to review your business story. I will meet with you via Zoom and review how you’re telling your business story — on your website, social media, and other channels. Then, I’ll recommend steps you can take to help prospects and customers tune in and act.

I have a limited number of slots open on my calendar for these sessions. Please visit my calendar to book a time that works for you.

Thanks!

Tom
314-529-1431
tom@StoryUpMarketing.com
www.StoryUp Marketing