Marketing with Mike Volpe

To catch up, read the article Why Pampers Diaper Fail is a Lesson in Marketing Transparency to get the back story and the updates in the article Pampers Steps up Digital, Social Media Efforts.  Here are my thoughts...

Pampers does not have a communications problem as much as a product development problem.

• Change is BAD for products with a high emotional quality to them, and diapers are for babies and people are very emotional about babies.  There is a huge risk in changing products for babies, even if you improve them.
• You can't tell people what to think anymore in TV ads about your product or even by getting 3 magazines to endorse your product.  You can't fix a poor product with good marketing anymore.
• P&G's product development cycle is famous and studied in business schools.  But, it was developed in the era of one-way broadcast media.  Customers were told what to think by a few TV stations, and had no way of communicating effectively with each other and product ratings and feedback didn't exist.  The P&G product development process is no longer relevant in an age where things move much faster, and customers have much more control and are much easier to involve in your development.

What should Pampers / P&G do now?

Change their product development process.  Get rid of the 2-3 year cycle.  Get rid of the focus groups.  Create "P&G Labs" which works on experimental products.  If people buy them, they know they are experimental and might be cool or might suck.  Bring customers into "P&G Labs" and co-develop products with them.  If you get customers feedback really early, and be more public about the process, people will respect it, and get more involved.  They will also become advocates.  Then, after the product launches and leaves P&G Labs, if someone says they don't like the product, all the customers involved will tell them they are crazy and tell them the 20 reasons why this product is better.  And P&G won't have to say a thing.

If they had done something like this, the launch of Pampers Dry Max would have been very different.  

This is a guest post from Tyson Goodridge, a Principal of DIALOGUE, a Social Media Education and Advisory Services firm.  He is also a lonely NY sports fan living here in Boston, and father of two boys (NY Giants fans).

 

This post is about you as a marketer. Not your company, not your website or blog,
but Y O U. What makes you an effective and efficient marketer every day?

Island vs. Hub

There are two ways to think of yourself. As an island -lets say the wonderful island of Bermuda. or as a hub- like, say Grand Central Station.

Bermuda is a wonderful island. Beautiful beaches, golf courses, hotels, weather, and of course the Ruuuuuum. It's a great place to be.

Grand Central isn't as pretty as Bermuda. There's hustle and bustle, lots of people, noise, traffic, and it certainly isn't as clean and tidy as Bermuda, right?

But look closer. It takes time, money and effort to get to the island. Once you've packed up from your vacation there, you may not go back for a year or two.

But if you're a hub like Grand Central people are always flowing in and out of your station. Think of yourself as the dispatcher at Grand Central. People and ideas are constantly flowing through you. (For a terrific visual reference of this, head to Mike Troiano's slide on Scalable intimacy)

Tell a story

As your grow your business, bring your customers and clients with you for your journey.
One of the best examples of an entrepreneur doing this is Melanie Notkin, Founder and CEO of SavvyAuntie. While creating her business, she brought her family, friends and supporters along for the ride, with constant updates on her blog. Your friends and supporters are much more interested in you and your story, not your cool software or technology.

Quality, not Quantity

Don't try to be everything to everyone. The human mind can only process and manage about 250 relationships at one time. So, when you are out there meeting new people and building new relationships, think to yourself "is this person or resource going to be one of my 250 key relationships?" At the end of the day, relationships are going to drive your business, not 1000 fans on your Facebook page. For more background on this, and a deeper understanding on digital relationships read Stephen Baker's terrific article
"What's a Friend Worth."

Efficiency

So much to do, but so little time. There are hundreds of books out there that teach you about how to be efficient. At the end of the day, pick a process and program that works for you. The ones that seem to always creep back up to the top are:

• Getting Things Done, by David Allen
• Four Hour Work Week, by Tim Ferriss
• Pomodoro Technique 

And, if you're really interested in learning about some of the "7 Habits" of Highly Effective Social Marketers" - like Mike Volpe :-). Head on over here.

This is a guest post from Kristin Dziadul, a recent college graduate with a marketing major, she is the 2009 New England Direct Marketing Association scholarship recipient, and has a strong passion for marketing and social media and blogs at www.KDmedianow.com. She is also a big Boston sports fan!

Social media has revolutionized the way that companies are now interacting with their target market. However, in order to be a successful player in the social media field, you must be seen as a thought-leader with a personality. This is not an easy task to accomplish, since so many companies are now invading social sites every day. I believe that creating an impressionable personality through your social media communications is a huge key to good relationship building.

How, then, can a company create a personality via the Internet? I find it more important than ever for a brand to convey a specific and memorable personality so that consumers can picture the person behind the company. Today, consumers do not want to do business with a company that does not care to interact with them. Instead, they prefer to buy from companies that are willing to reach out to them and hear their feedback.

Companies must begin, if they have not already, to develop their own community in which consumers can engage in meaningful communication, whether this is a ning community, blog, or community forum. This will not only help the company gain an understanding of customers' needs and problems, but they can get a good sense of the company's personality. For example, imagine meeting someone and conversing with them, but never really knowing too much about them personally. You know what they studied in school and you know their general hobbies, but nothing more than that. What a boring friend! The same goes for a business; consumers want to know who they are giving their money to and interacting with on a deeper level.

When developing relationships with these consumers, it is critical to ensure they are authentic and genuine. If you reach out to the target market to initiate genuine relationships, consumers will find this much more impressive, therefore increasing your chances of doing business with them and converting them into a strong lead.

A report by Mashable suggested that companies should be a digital trendsetter by giving consumers interesting, new information to read. This information does not need to be about your product or service, in fact it is better if it is not. Being seen as a thought-leader in the industry increases your credibility and expertise in the eyes of your market. In the same article, Jessica Randazza from Digitas stated, "as brands become more entrenched in social media, there will be a need to silo things out and focus on creating more genuine content."

An example of how important lasting brand images are lies with the PGA and their recent conflict. Tiger Woods was traditionally seen as the ‘image' of the PGA, and represented all that was good and professional about golf. However, after his scandal in 2009, the whole PGA suffered this great reputation. What did the PGA do wrong? They put their whole image on one person, Tiger. No other professional sport did this.

Another Mashable article reported that, "they cannot hinge the business of golf onto just one player- it's not practical. Golf existed before Tiger, and it will exist after he leaves." The PGA now has to rebuild its brand beyond the image of Tiger, and social media can help achieve this. Other players, including Bubba Watson and Stewart Cink, are on social sites developing their image as a part of the PGA, which will go miles in helping this sport recap its professional image. The article continued, "What the PGA needs to do is move forward and embrace social media to the max. Currently the PGA has a Facebook page with just over 35,000 fans, and a Twitter account with a little more than 19,000 followers." These numbers are not large at all for the actual fan base of professional golf.

The PGA serves as an example that many companies beginning to embrace social media should follow. They should ensure to create a genuine, lasting image without depending on one single factor that distinguishes them. Just like the image of a brand, a company personality must encompass many a full-fledged persona while still being consistent throughout all mediums on which it is translated.

What are some ways your company is embracing a social media personality?

I love data.  Netflix makes available rental data by zip code.  Mash that up with a map and you can get some cool stuff.  This article on NYTimes.com has a cool graphic that allows you to see rental popularity by different titles and zip codes.

I've always thought that marketing people, especially those on the creative and advertising side of the industry loved the show. In fact, I started watching it during the first season after 3 different advertising/PR people told me about it.  Now I might have some data that agrees with me?

In Boston, there is a big concentration of Mad Men viewers in Cambridge (where HubSpot is located by the way) and also Boston and Somerville - areas where creative types tend to live and work.  In New York, you see the same thing - a concentration in Manhattan and Brooklyn.  And in the San Francisco Bay Area, there is a concentration in San Francisco and Oakland, and a noticeable lack of views in the technology-centric (but not marketing-centric) Silicon Valley.

 

 

 

Hat tip to Kirsten, who sent me the link.

What do you think?  Is my assumption correct?

I am friends with a guy named John Wall, who blogs and podcasts at The M Show and on Marketing Over Coffee.  John is "slightly famous", because he is known in the marketing world.  I am sure that at marketing industry events people come up to him and introduce themselves (I have experienced this sometimes because of HubSpot and HubSpot TV).  But in the real world he is completely anonymous.  However, according to Google he was the most famous John Wall since he usually ranked toward the top of search results for his name.

But, there is another "John Wall".  He is a basketball player.  I found him since he was a trending topic today on Twitter for having decided to go to University of Kentucky.

I wonder how this will affect John's personal brand and SEO.  Today I noticed a lot of news articles and videos ranking above John's blog for a search on "John Wall".  If this new John Wall goes on to the NBA, it will probably be super difficult for the first John to rank on the first page of Google for his name.

Ideas & Thoughts:

• Make sure you have the domain that matches the online moniker you use (like I have http://www.mikevolpe.com/) - though even then spelling matters, there is a Mike Volpi (CEO of Joost the online video company) that sometimes people confuse with me
• If you have a potentially common name (like John Wall) you can start using your middle name, like David Meerman Scott
• Everyone is vulnerable to a potential personal branding issue from someone becoming famous with the same name (remember the movie Office Space and the guy named "Mike Bolton"...ouch!)
• Publish lots of content and build lots of authority on ONE domain for your personal brand
• John should include "John Wall" in the page title of homepage of The M Show website - he now has to optimize for this term because of a new competitor

What other ideas do you have?

Karen Rubin and I have talked about this on HubSpot TV before, but I think this is a cool example of a company adding a lot of personality to a brand and products at a low cost.  In this video the company owner/designer tells you about the shoes you want to buy and how they make her feel when she wears them.  Very cool way to build an emotional connection, just using a short video on the web - at a very low cost.

Now... onto what Tracy Porter is doing wrong...

1. I can't share the video! It was a real pain in the ass for me to grab a screenshot and link to it, and there was no way to easily embed the video directly in my blog.  There should be.  More people would spread the videos if it were easier.
2. The videos are not spread throughout the web!  Don't just lock your videos up on your website, put them on as many sites as you can - YouTube, Viddler, Vimeo, Facebook, Blip.tv, etc.  Use a service like Vidmetrix or TubeMogul to cross post automatically.  They should put these videos anyplace they can.

Posting the product videos to YouTube or another service and then embedding those on your own website would solve both of these problems.  Tracy Porter actually has a YouTube channel, but they only have 23 videos and they do not post the product videos from their website on YouTube.  They should.

Have you used video to add personality to you brand?  How?

I had a chance to speak with Dan Schawbel today for an interview on his blog.  Read the full article "Build Your Company's Brand and Your Brand Will Reap the Rewards."  Some quotes that Dan made me think of because of his good questions:

• When it comes to branding your company as a “cool place to work”, I think it starts with authenticity. We really do think we’re a cool place to work, and we all like working here. If that is true, the next step is just sharing and publishing.
• I think most blogs fail for two reasons. First, I think most companies write blog articles that they want people to read, but it’s not what people actually want to read.  Second, most companies will start a blog for about 3 months and then stop because “it’s not working”, when it can take a while for the bigger effects to kick in.
• Not everything works, so with inbound marketing you just experiment a lot, learn from your failures and keep working hard. 
• I think companies should rethink every aspect of their marketing and ask why they are paying for advertising and could they build their own channel instead.

• If you're doing your job right, as an inbound marketer, you'll end up building a personal brand naturally as part of promoting your company.

Read the full article "Build Your Company's Brand and Your Brand Will Reap the Rewards"

 

Photo credit: mharrsch