Do It! Marketing Blog: Marketing for Smart People™

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Just got a question from one of my NSA speaker friends, Kevin Lerner of PresentationTeam. His question is as common as it is tricky:

"Is it better to promote your personal brand or your company brand?"

He continued, "Do I put more focus into the personal or professional? I'm seeing more and more people who have mostly professional information in their social media profiles and activities (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter). Do I maintain a presence for both? Which one is primary - me or the company?"

Good observation, Kevin, and even better question. As a marketing speaker and marketing coach who works with professional speakers, consultants, and professional services firms, this question comes up a lot.

The answer lies in building your brand sandwich. It's made up of several layers and each one needs to be hot, tasty, and fresh on it's own. (And avoid using ciabatta bread.)

Seriously - here are the layers for your brand sandwich:

• Your personal name/brand (in my case, David Newman)
• Your company name (for me, Do It! Marketing)
• Your book titles (ex: 21 Secrets of Simple Marketing Success)
• Your speech/seminar titles (ideally, there's a book or product with the SAME name in your arsenal)  
• Your sound bites and building your "marketing language bank" (which is itself one of MY sound bites!!)
• Your favorite sayings or expressions (ex: "Fabulous!!!" or "BAM!")

When it comes to social media, the best plan is to market your PERSONAL brand first and foremost. After all, remember it's called SOCIAL media -- not BUSINESS media!

My three rules for social media (and these apply equally well to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and your blog):

1. It's SOCIAL (be a PERSON first) - 3-dimensional, quirky, approachable, authentic, fun

2. It's OUTWARD-focused - Just like making friends, you'll make a lot more of them if you make your social interactions about THEM and not about YOU

3. It's a RELATIONSHIP and not a transaction - treat your followers, fans, and friends like real people. They have egos, they have feelings, they like being thanked, recognized, promoted, and praised. So DO THOSE things and you'll do great.

So Kevin - YOU ROCK, BABY! Thanks for asking the killer question!!

A corporate presence in social media is great -- if you're a corporation.

If you're a 1-5 person business (like 90% of businesses in America are), then you're NOT trading on your company's name - you're trading on your own. Make your social media strategy fit that reality and all the pieces will come together nicely for you.

As a marketing speaker and marketing coach, many of my clients have neither the budget nor the business model to justify a big advertising budget, much less advertising on TV... BUT a while back there was a Home Depot television commercial that brilliantly demonstrated an understanding of HOW their customers (and yours) make purchasing decisions.

It went something like this…

A man is standing in the tool department holding a drill while his wife looks on dubiously.

He obviously wants to buy it, but apparently expects some resistance from his wife so in an effort to convince her says, "Don't think of this as a drill, think of this as your new book shelves."

Well, his ploy worked because in the next scene, the same couple is standing in front of the table saws. He smiles at his wife, points to one and says, "And think of this as your new deck!"

The final scene shows the same couple getting ready to purchase a shop vac. Only this time the woman speaks up and says, "And I can think of this as my clean garage!"

Not only do they do a stellar job of articulating their products' benefits but they do so without mentioning one feature! So, the next time you're tempted to itemize your products' or services' nifty features take a deep breath and stop.

Instead, articulate how those features translate into customer benefits, outcomes, and results.

As a motivational speaker in the area of marketing and business development, I'm often asked by CEOs and business owners about how they can be better leaders of their internal marketing efforts. 

My answer is you can't be a great marketing leader unless you're first a great leader.

Here are some guidelines that the best leaders across all disciplines have come to recognize as foundational to their leadership success and that I share with you for the benefit of your own marketing success:

1. Expect the best from people you lead.
2. Become fully aware of others' needs.
   
3. Establish high standards of excellence; communicate them
   clearly and often.
4. Create an environment where failure is not fatal.
   
5. Climb on other people's bandwagons if they're going
   anywhere near the neighborhood you want to go.
6. Employ stories, examples, analogies, and models to
   encourage success.
   
7. Use a balanced mix of positive and negative feedback in
   a constructive spirit and with specific substance.
   
8. Appeal sparingly (or not at all) to competitive or
   aggressive impulses.
   
9. Encourage and reward collaboration.
10. Build into the group an allowance for healthy conflict
    and "fights" around issues, not around personalities.
    
11. Recognize and celebrate achievement.
    
12. Take steps to keep your own level of motivation genuine
    and high

Testimonials are among the most powerful marketing ammunition in your marketing arsenal. As a small business marketing speaker, I'm often asked if testimonials are important - and if so, why?

Testimonials have the power to achieve a variety of things for your marketing and customer retention programs.

Each time you use a testimonial you need to decide what you are trying to accomplish or what message you are trying to support. For example, they can:

* Overcome buyer skepticism. Use a testimonial to shine light on your credibility, or on the quality of your product or service. This type of testimonial builds trust and overcomes natural barriers. In the example above, the testimonial could have read: "Best product I've tried in this price bracket - and I've tried many. Great value for money, and no shortcuts on quality."

 * Overcome objections. Your readers are going to be naturally skeptical of any claims, promises or bold statements. As much as you can back yourself up with facts, a third party experience or opinion will work wonders to overcome unspoken objections in the customer's mind. "It all sounded too good to be true, but when I used the hair straightener, there was more shine and less breakage."

* Simplify or make a point. A customer's personal experience with your product or service will work to persuade your audience like a story does. Complex explanations or abstract applications will make more sense when applied to real life examples. This works well with highly technical products or complex services where the customer doesn't need to understand all the details.

* Break up and maintain interest in long copy. Readers have short attention spans and they will get bored unless you can change up the structure on a regular basis. Quotations and testimonials will break up the tone or voice of the copy, and sound like the customer is reading dialogue, which will keep them engaged. You can also break up paragraphs with a testimonial that supports the point you have just made.

* Target anxieties or doubts. Just like they can overcome skepticism and objections, they can also overcome hidden anxieties or doubts at each stage of the sales process. Anticipate questions like "is this worth my money?", "do I really need this?", "can I trust the guarantee?" and "will they sell my information?", and place testimonials accordingly.

Use testimonials in your marketing efforts and you'll unleash the power of social proof, reduce risk, and induce the "I gotta get me some o' that" factor!

What has been your experience with testimonials? Use the comments area below to share your thoughts...

Marketing speakers and marketing consultants are famous for packing in "over 100 strategies you can use immediately" and "97 secrets" or "51 immutable laws" of this and that.

Problem is - those numbers are too high. You don't need 100, you can't implement 97, and you'll never get a handle on 51.

You need 3-4 max. Three strategies. Or four tactics. Used with focus, momentum, and consistency...

Less is truly more. Here's Picasso's take on it:
===
You must always work not just within, but below your means. If you can handle three elements, handle only two. If you can handle ten, then handle only five. In that way, the ones you do handle, you handle with more ease, more mastery, and you create a feeling of strength in reserve.

-- Pablo Picasso
===

If any one thing characterizes the time in which we live, it is the tendency to strive and to overreach and to want more, more, more, now, now, now.

The problem with multi-tasking and this go-go-go pattern of life and work is that there is no room for mastery, for ease, for “strength in reserve.”

• If you want to get more done, work more slowly.
• If you want it faster, develop a singular focus.
• If you want to get better, do less.

As a marketing speaker and marketing coach to other professional speakers, CEOs, and business owners - and certainly from my own experience - I can safely say that too often, we get caught up in trying to get everything just perfect.

While you are working on “perfect,” someone else with “just okay” is raking in all the money. 

Face it - Reading the next book, attending the next seminar, or trying the latest software alone will do nothing for you. This is the classic "Ready, Aim, Aim, and Aim" syndrome. Always aiming and never pulling the trigger.

The key lies in taking action. I would like to invite you to try a technique suggested by my colleague Michael Masterson—the Ready, Fire, Aim technique. Do something; even if it is wrong, go ahead take the shot -- screw up.

At the very least, you are moving in the right direction.Fellow speaker and prosperity guru Joe Vitale says, “Money loves speed” those who take the swiftest action make the most amount of money.

Go ahead -- DO IT, and once you're moving, then worry about making it perfect.

Let's take the specific context of internet marketing as an example. And we'll start with your e-zine or blog...

In its simplest form an e‐zine or blog is all about information. Give your reader the information he wants to read about, and he will reward you with his trust and eventually his money.

There are five phases for any Internet marketing entrepreneur. In phase one, you read and study Internet marketing, go to conferences, devour e‐books and courses. At this stage, you are thinking about internet marketing all the time, yet you are not actually in it yet—not actually doing it. You don’t have a list, product, or the infrastructure in place to do business online.

In phase two, you dip your toe in the water—developing a product and making a few sales. The income is not significant. Except now, the idea of making money online is no longer merely a dream, an idea in your head. It’s reality. Making your first few sales will energize you and propel you forward to phase three.

In phase three, you develop more products, build your e‐zine subscriber list, and start making a significant spare‐time income online. Maybe it’s a thousand dollars a month in sales. Maybe it’s a thousand dollars a week. It’s not enough to live on, yet. But the extra money allows you to buy nicer things and become more financially secure.

In phase four, you reach a point where your Internet business makes enough money for you to live on—enough for you to quit your job and leave the rat race behind forever. For some people, this might be $2,000 to $3,000 a week in net online revenues.

In phase five, you double or triple the size of your list, add more products make more deals, and start making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, or even a million dollars or more. You become an Internet millionaire.

The problem is that the large majority of people who explore Internet marketing never get past phase one. They get addicted to reading “make money on the Internet” materials and attending conferences and tele‐seminars on the subject. But they never actually do something.

No matter what the marketing strategy, tactic, or business development effort - get going with baby step... RIGHT NOW.

You want an inbound link back to your blog or website? Great - leave a comment below with your reactions to the "Ready, Fire, Aim" technique - and you'll have DONE something to build your business. Do it!!!

Many people I speak to tell me they do not use e‐zines because they simply do not have the time. As a marketing speaker and marketing coach to very busy CEOs, business owners, other professional speakers, and consultants, I hear you. 

Here's the secret: It only takes me two hours or less per month. And those two hours are some of the highest ROI hours I can spend.

You're getting my simple formula for writing e‐zines that will make your ezine much easier to write - and more profitable to send.

Write five to seven short stories about a topic, one to three paragraphs each. You want the reader to be able to get through each story in under a minute. You do not have an unlimited amount of time with your reader so make sure he can read your entire e‐zine issue in about five minutes.

The next little tip might seem insignificant but I think it is vitally important. Do not put any click links to your stories; you do not want to give the readers mind a chance to wonder, because they are waiting for another page to load.

Many Websites like to give you a brief description of the article and then ask you to click on a link to read the whole article. That is just too many hoops to go through to read the story. Do not have just a story title and first paragraph with a link to the entire article.

Write short articles and include the entire article in the e‐zine itself, not a teaser part.

So here, it is in 4 Simple Steps:

1. 5 – 7 stories

2. 1 – 3 paragraphs each

3. Maximum reading time < 1 minute per story < 5 minutes per issue

4. No click links to stories—the full story is in the e‐zine.

There you have it quick, simple, and effective.

BONUS: Here are 8 more tips for writing an e‐ zine, courtesy of Dan Ranly, www.ranly.com:

1. Write for surfers and scanners

2. Provide information quickly and easily

3. Think both verbally and visually

4. Cut copy in half

5. Use lots of lists and bullets

6. Write in chunks

7. Use hyperlinks

8. Give readers a chance to talk back (feedback)

Feedback from YOU is always welcome in the comments area below...

You could pay a marketing coach or ad agency or brand consultant BIG bucks to create (or recreate) your brand. A word of advice: DON'T!

You need a snappy name. Something sharp, clever, clear, and concise. Something you’d be proud to have your fans and customers display on a t-shirt, coffee mug or bumper sticker. You want to be the go-to resource – no – you want to be the rock star in your profession or industry. And you’re just one strong branding step away – you can almost TASTE it!!!

But you’re not smart enough to do it yourself.

Oops, wait a minute… yes you are.

Fact is, a lot of advertising agency types and “branding gurus” are simply overpriced hacks. Shocking, I know… you’re stunned that coming up with a cool name for your new services, programs, and products could be simple, straightforward, and easy.

Well, sit down with a nice hot cup of your favorite caffeinated beverage and strap in – ‘cuz you’re getting my secret stash of branding whoop-ass.

Take your topic or product or service (Leadership or Cookies or HVAC or Recruiting or Plastics) and add one or more of these brand building blocks. Some stand alone – some work in combination with others. Sometimes you’ll want to put the building block BEFORE your service/product and sometimes it will sound better AFTER. Play with these – they’re my gift to you.

Instant Branding Toolkit

Market
Exchange
Zip
Zap
Focus
Momentum
Fun
Power
Professional
Savvy
Smarts
Sense
Action
Pyramid
Dive
Redline
RPM
GPS
Roundtable
Summit
Slide
Swing
Sandbox
Playground
Monkey
Chimp
Rhino
Hippo
Gazelle
Tiger
Lion
Shark
Dolphin
Insights
Forum
Café
Center
Storm
Success
Life
Mojo
Club
Hub
Lounge
Launchpad
Library
Archive
Free ____ tips
Free ____ tools
Tips
Tools
Toolbox
Toolkit
Club
Network
Posse
Bakery
Mashup
Focus
Resource
Queen
King
Flyer
Circle
Gameplan
Blueprint
Treasure chest
Strategies
Tactics
Secrets
Profits
Revealed
Disco
Party
Pantry
Bakeshop
Factory
Foundry
Vortex
Nexus
Universe
Galaxy
World
Planet
Star
Done right
Made easy
Cocktail
Bar
Game
Advise
Monitor
Puppy
Daddy
Mama
Baby
Zoom
Boom
Direct
Show
Thunder
Undercover
After hours
After dark
Agent
Sauce
Juice
Jazz
Page
Letter
Book
Cruise
Action
Roadmap
Max
Navigator
Gps
Master
Accelerator
Advisor
Lightning
Bullseye
Profits
Revenues
Hang out
Shout
Scream
Bam
Mall
Feast
Meal
Lunch
Zone
Poop
Scoop
Machine
Force
Onramp
Route
Highway
Express
Check
Box
Square
Speed
Accelerate
Compass
University
U
College
Academy
Institute
First
Prime
One

I'm looking forward to buying from the following businesses in the very near future... maybe one of these will be yours:

• The Cookie Machine
• The Video Advisor
• CareerNavigator
• SalesGPS
• Coffee Hangout
• Guitars After Dark
• The Fitness Foundry

And if you end up using something you create with this list as your new brand, do me a favor – please make a generous donation to your favorite charity. Even a tiny fraction of what you would have paid the “ad agency” will make a BIG difference to the non-profit of your choice. If you don’t have any particular good cause in mind, here are three I recommend:

http://www.acumenfund.org     
http://www.roomtoread.org
http://nsafoundation.org

Rock on, you do-it-yourself brander, you!!

Do you like this list? Want to Tweet it? Quote it? Add to it? Use the comments area below and let's hear what's in YOUR can of branding whoop-ass!!

And then leave a comment below with your questions, thoughts, and advice on the ideas above.

Are you a DO IT freak? Welcome to the club!! Please use the social media buttons at the top of this post to share it with your network. YOU are a rock star!