Today’s One Minute Marketing topic is Make it easy… a crisis communications tip
At any time your brand needs to make it easy to buy. Or connect, engage, respond. Whatever it is you are trying to accomplish with your marketing.
In a crisis, this is even more important. People are distracted, pre-occupied. Your communications need to be direct, easy to understand and have a call to action that is easy to do. You are asking people to take their time and effort to engage with you. So make it easy. Especially in a time when people have so many serious things on their mind.
One Step Action
What you want to avoid is a second step: if you provide a click, the link better be to the exact information or offer you promised. No scrolling, no looking for a clue… it has to be there.
If you’re providing a phone number, it better answer or have a message that pays off the offer. No “leave a message in the general mailbox” or “our system has changed please listen carefully…”. Live or on voicemail, a phone number should answer “If you’re calling about our XYZ offer, you’ve called the right place…” and then go on from there with providing the information about the offer.
Immediate Action
People need immediate direct action or they are moving on. Provide an easy one step process to make sure people feel connected and are confident you know what they want or need.
No matter how compelling you think your product or service is, it’s not worth five clicks or trying to navigate an endless phone tree. Connect your prospect immediately to what they want. Every time. And especially in a crisis.
If you would like to discuss your crisis communications, we would love to help. In fact, you can send us a question and we’ll provide our best advice – no cost, no obligation.
Today’s One Minute Marketing topic is Get Creative… a crisis communications tip
You have to love the creativity of people. Whether the latest work from home memes or figuring out a way to hold a 100 year old’s birthday party while social distancing, creativity makes us laugh, feel connected, and more.
Can You Be Creative?
How creative is your company? Not talking about funny memes, but rather what can your brand do to develop a creative solution or experience for customers and consumers during this crisis?
A Roadblock to Creativity
Here’s one big roadblock for creativity: inward focus. If you are focused on your own problems and issues, it is difficult to be creative about customer solutions.
What Does the Target Customer Need?
This is a great time to go back to what should be a part of every marketing plan: the target customer. Some call it personas – meaning a description (and often image or photo) of a “typical customer”.
Review the attributes of your target customer. What are they feeling? What are they dealing with? What do they need? What do they wish they had?
As you do this, ideas will start to come… you may begin to see connection points between your offering and the particular needs of customers in the current environment. Perhaps it is different delivery schedule, extended terms or unpacking the full offering into a piece that is most needed now. Maybe it is contacting your customer differently to make them aware of the new ideas.
Ask for Help
If you are struggling to come up with ideas, have a group chat with staff. Or ask your best customers for what they need and ideas about how your organization could help.
In a crisis you can’t give away the store, but some creative ideas can help you deliver for your customers in ways you normally wouldn’t or couldn’t.
Now is the time to get creative – get your team together, or ask your customers. See where you can provide value in a time of need.
Get Creative with Your Marketing
If you would like to discuss your crisis communications, we would love to help. In fact, you can send us a question and we’ll provide our best advice – no cost, no obligation.
During a crisis situation it is good to have a checklist of communications. Here is a quick checklist for the current pandemic:
Internal Communications
Overcommunicate. Staff are looking to leaders to provide guidance and information. No matter the situation: limited office work, work from home or temporarily furloughed… let them know what the company is doing/thinking.
Be clear. Focus on the main messages and clearly communicate them. What are the 1, 2, 3 things staff should be focused on during this crisis?
Designate all staff who will communicate with customers and the public and what they should say (and not say). Other staff should be coached on gathering information and passing on to designated leaders the concerns of customers.
Set up a feedback loop. Are there ways for staff to reach the your company decision makers with questions or to report things they hear from customers?
Maintain one voice. Check in regularly with those who are speaking with customers or the public to make sure the message is thorough and consistent.
External Communications
Communicate changes to customers – services, processes, hours, contact information, etc.
Designate contact methods. Do your customers know how to contact the company if they have an issue? Even if you are closed, there should be some way for customers to get a message to company leadership.
Set up a schedule on website and/or social media to update information on a weekly (or more often as necessary) basis. Use push notification (such as email) only when you have real news – information that customers or the public need to know to interact with your company.
General Tips
Bring perspective. Consider the position of the audience to whom you are communicating. What are they concerned about? Balance that with perspective from your position as a leader in the organization. What do you need them to know?
Be right rather than quick. Don’t react. Take your time, get the message correct, then communicate.
Don’t speculate – if you’re closed for this week, say that, nothing more. In crisis situations, things change quickly.
Stay calm. And speak that way.
Say Thank you. In a crisis, everyone is working in ways they normally don’t or on issues that aren’t typical. Take a moment to appreciate those efforts.
Look for opportunities – not to profit, but to provide education, extra service… be helpful.
Plan Ahead
Once this crisis passes, schedule time to debrief and develop a plan for the next crisis. Whether large like a pandemic or something smaller, another crisis will come. Having a plan for communications is a smart tool for your business plan.
Contact us if you need help now, or planning for the next communications situation.
Entertaining game and congratulations to the Chiefs on their victory.
And the Super Bowl of ads… here’s how I saw it. Let me know your thoughts and favorites @StephenLEckert or here. Lots of good creative – I chose two best commercials: Wal-Mart and Jeep Gladiator. Read about them and watch below.
Best Super Bowl Commercial: First Half
Wal-Mart – Pickup Service
Creative isn’t the end all, humor isn’t the purpose of a commercial. Explaining a product or service is the purpose. Doing that with cool effects and humor is a bonus. Wal-Mart shows their pick-up service is for anyone… from Captain Kirk to Lego spaceman to Arrival’s heptapods (glass cleaner? – hilarious). Promotes a service in an engaging, memorable way.
Best Super Bowl Commercial: Second Half
Jeep Gladiator
Not sure if the target market for the Jeep Gladiator remembers the movie Groundhog Day from the theater (I doubt it). But sometimes creative is too good to pass up. The Super Bowl on February 2nd? Your product is a pick-up truck and Bill Murray’s character stole a (Chevy) pick up with the groundhog? You must do it! Having Bill Murray re-enact his role but in this version he’s enjoy repeating his day because of the Jeep Gladiator. Brilliant.
Other commercials that actually sold a feature
Hyundai
Not sure why Boston accents (and why didn’t they have a Wahlberg brother!), but fun creative and shows a feature (self parking). Hyundai consistently combines product features, benefits and good creative (remember the Kevin Hart commercial using the Hyundai tracking device to keep up with his dating daughter?).
T-Mobile
It works in the club! Funny with Anthony Anderson getting calls from his mom about her new 5G phone. It works everywhere! That’s selling a feature in a very relatable way.
Mountain Dew No Sugar
A rediculous creative spoof of horror films to introduce new Mountain Dew flavor. Great way to make a new product memorable.
Discover
No and Yes Spots. Clever, quick cuts between TV and movie “no” or “yes” moments with the payoff being that Discover has no fees (in the “no” spot) and is taken at 95% of retailers and restaurants (in the “yes” spot). A good ad that reinforces features and benefits.
Pepsi
Rolling Stone “Paint it Black” (from a red can). Direct swipe at Coke Zero. Young stars singing the praises of your product is always good. Good awareness ad. Doesn’t really prove it’s better than Coke. Of course, how would you in a TV spot? Oh wait, they did that with the Pepsi Challenge (look it up).
Fun for fun’s sake…
Okay, I hear you, I hear you. Can’t there just be well-produced, creative ads that show off a product. Yup…
Doritos
Doritos spot featuring Lil Nas and Sam Elliott “make your move” (love the dancing mustache) with a Billy Ray Cyrus cameo was silly and fun. Not sure it sells Doritos, but the speakers on the back of the horse was a LOL.
Cheetos
Funny, sort of selling an anti-benefit… orange dust-covered fingers will keep you from having to change diapers, move couches, etc. Probably a sign of my age but enjoyed the MC Hammer cameo a lot.
Pringles
Great concept with Rick and Morty but didn’t focus on the many flavors enough.
Mr. Peanut
Paying off Mr. Peanut dying in previous spots. Or trying to play on the popularity of Baby Yoda? I wonder…
And then there was…
Worst Super Bowl Commercial
Olay
“Space for Women”. I’m all for women in the science fields, love the effort to promote science to women. But Olay’s creative made women look silly – no one but the astronaut realizes there is a lot of space in space? Then the end of the commercial is one of the women pushing the ejection button without finding out what it does first? Bad, insulting non-humor. Wasted effort, could have been executed much better.
New York Life
Nice, but ineffective, commercial to celebrate 175 years. Inwardly focused… and that’s fine if you want to spend $5 million to make your shareholders and employees feel good. Interesting to define the four types of love in the Greek language, but the creative took too long to develop and the connection to New York life services and agape love was a stretch at best. At best…
Michelob Ultra
Buy a six-pack and Michelob will convert six square feet of farmland to organic. Really? That’s why I’m buying your beer? Corporate virtue signaling at its best (and worst). That’s a 1 ft by 6ft slice. Sounds amazing. There are 39,857,400,000,000 square feet of farmland in the U.S. Don’t drink that much… please. Jimmy Fallon is always funny, so that Ultra spot was at least enjoyable.
Ultra totally punk’d by Saint Archer Gold spot with a young beer seeker passing by Ultra in three stores to find Gold based on better taste. Guess he doesn’t care about farmland.
Hard Rock Hotel
JLo, DJ Khalid, sparkle cup. What the…
Intuit Turbotax
The spot running in the weeks before the Super Bowl was a better spot. What does the dancing mean? The earlier commercial made the point that Americans are good at taking photos (we are – we all carry a camera everywhere, every day) and therefore can be good at taxes. That spot was selling their service and was a better ad.
Bud Light and Tide Power Pods
I’m over the Bud Light Knight. Should have left them dead at last year’s Super Bowl with the Game of Thrones cross-promotion. Post Malone spot wasn’t much better. Did like the Tide guy running into Wonder Woman and just stopping at her “request”.
Audi
Let it go. Please. What a waste of an expensive song licensing fee. And exactly how does she get out of traffic?!? Just because she has an electric car the roads open up? Wish it were so…
Nice Touch
Verizon 5G
Nice honoring of first responders. Good to see a technology company acknowledge the importance of non-technology.
All in all
Lot of fun spots (many not covered here) and great creative. A good Super Bowl of commercials. Let me know your thoughts and favorites @StephenLEckert or here.
Trade Shows, Conferences, and Chambers – Marketing at an Event
Events are a great way to market your product or service. In another post, we’ll discuss marketing your own events. This blog is about getting the most out of events you attend. It is a simple formula of marketing before, during, and after the event.
Go Before You Show
Consider attending the event before marketing at an event. This means taking the long view (if you’ve read my book, you know we are about planning first and acting second). Rather than throwing those marketing dollars at the upcoming event, attend the event. Walking around a trade show or conference will give you the perspective you need for marketing at an event successfully. On-site as an attendee you can:
Talk to other attendees from their perspective – not as someone selling them,
Get a feel for the show and how other companies are having success engaging prospects,
Understand better the value you are getting when you sign to display, and
Learning the ins and outs… better to have a booth in the main room, by the restrooms, in the concourse, or not at all?
Learn more about marketing budgeting and more in the Genius! Marketing book!
By being an attendee, you’ll increase your chances to successfully engage prospects if you do display at a future show.
Every Show is Different, and Every Show is the Same
Walking around a show as an attendee will help you to understand how the show is unique, and how it is similar to other events. There may be things you want to do exactly as you always do – display, handouts, etc. Or there may be a different vibe to the show that gives you an idea for a new contest, giveaway, survey, or another engagement tool.
Success for the “walkabout” would be meeting one prospect. It happens… I’ve done it, and I’ve had clients who’ve done it. By simply walking a show floor and talking to people they meet, a new connection forms that can grow into a prospect and then a customer. The power of having an attendee badge and not a presenter badge is in that you’re on the “same side of the display” as other attendees. Trust me, it won’t be a waste to attend before you display.
Get the Attendee List when Marketing at an Event
It is paramount to know who is coming to an event. In the walkabout/attend-only year, ask the event promoter to provide a list of attendees. Not the published brochure list or logos, but an actual attendee list. You want to see who attends (and who displays) by title and company. This gives you a couple advantages as you prepare for the next event at which you may be a presenter/have a display. First, you’ll have insight as to whom you are marketing, which can inform which messages and products you highlight at the event. It also gives you a way to make the event more than a shot in the dark. Make the attendee list for the following event part of your negotiation for taking a display space. It isn’t always possible to obtain but negotiate for it. You will get much more out of the show if you know who is coming.
Invitation Only Event
When marketing at an event, make some part of the show by invitation only. Use the attendee list provided to invite customers and target prospects to a special presentation.
Back in the day, off-site hospitality rooms were a mainstay. That works, but can be expensive and aren’t necessarily attractive to prospects who have a heavy work schedule and need to use their evenings to catch up on email and other tasks. Rather, consider what can be done to invite special prospects and customers to an informative special event. It could be on the display floor, during regular show hours. Or a breakfast meeting before the event begins. Make it focus on helping the prospect with their job… after all, that’s why they are attending the event.
Such an event could be a Q/A with an industry expert (who could be from your organization) or a panel discussion on a hot topic. If doing the “event within an event” on the display floor, close your booth and post a staff person in the aisle to answer questions and engage people who will stop to look and listen. Nothing gets interest piqued like an event from which I am excluded! Collect names of interested passers-by for follow up and an invitation to a similar event via webinar in the future.
Follow Up
To maximize your marketing at an event: follow up. It is difficult, especially with multi-day events. When back in the office, there are old tasks waiting for completion, new tasks that are coming, plus event fatigue… we naturally want to move on to something different. Schedule time to consistently work through the follow-up items. Send quick emails to thank people who inquired or attended your invitation-only event. Provide a timeline to them for expected follow up. Don’t immediately dump a ton of information on a prospect. They have all the same time and energy constraints you have when returning from a show. A quick email and a promise to be in touch can be the best communication received.
For invitees that didn’t stop by the display, schedule a follow-up note or email to highlight some of the discussions… a brief “what they missed.”
As a marketer, it is also your job to make sure that messages delivered – including promises at events – are true. Don’t dump a list on sales and wash your hands. Follow-up internally to make sure that information is delivered, contact is made, promises are kept.
Think Long Term
Assess the event and how productive it was for:
gaining industry information,
educating the market, and
engaging prospects and customers.
If successful in these areas, consider going back. If not, perhaps other marketing tactics are a better spend. Events can be powerful marketing tools, but like all marketing, need a plan for before, during, and after the event. Planning makes marketing work. Even genius!
Need a primer on marketing planning? Buy the book Genius! Marketing. Considering marketing through an event? Contact us if you have questions or need help building a winning event program.
Website Checklist: Make Sure Your Website Serves Your Prospects and Customers
Here’s a website checklist that will help you determine if your website is giving prospects and customers what they want and need. Whether you sell professional services, a manufactured product, are a nonprofit, or a retailer, your prospects and customers expect your website to help them. Your website is part of your sales support team, and part of your customer service team. Check your site to make sure you are giving prospects and customers what they want and need.
Learn more about marketing budgeting and more in the Genius! Marketing book!
Website Checklist
Responsive and Functional Mobile – Your website may be responsive – it renders differently on mobile, tablet and computer. (If you don’t have a responsive website, contact us immediately to build you one!) It works by resizing and shuffling blocks of content for each screen size. Make sure the content makes sense on each type of device. Homepages with long scrolls through lots of information on a laptop may be unbearable for the user to scroll on a smartphone.
Contact Info – Sometimes people need to call or email you, and they visit your website to get the number. Look at your site on all your devices and ask: “If someone just needed our address, our phone number, or an email, how easily can they find it?” The long scroll on smartphone mentioned above? A customer who is just looking for a phone number will find it very frustrating to scroll to the bottom of a long page. Put a link to the contact page/information in an upper menu that is the first thing seen on mobile, or just put the phone number (click to call on mobile).
What Now? – All of us want our prospects to read every page, look at every photo, and watch every video on our website. Do you do that when you visit a website? Or, do you quickly scan for the information you want, or direction on how to get it. Don’t assume that a (any) visitor will (ever) read all your website pages. Don’t expect a visitor looks at the menu and tries to understand the organization of the website. Assume your visitor doesn’t know what to do and tell them. Give them an easy way to choose what to do next. Rotating graphics or “sliders” on the homepage can do this, use them to show the latest offers, next step, or key information you need visitors to see. Alternatively, put two or three blocks on the homepage that address the key information for visitors and links them to the page they want. A simplistic example for emphasis: “Buy Now”, “Today’s Specials”, and “Unsure – Start Here”. There are many ways to guide the visitor; it starts by thinking like a visitor or doing marketing research to understand their needs.
Pay Off Your Marketing – I am personally frustrated when I hear or see an ad and go to a website and don’t see the offer immediately. Ever happen to you? If so, what is your reaction? Mine is I move on… I might click one menu to see if I can find the offer, but if I don’t see it in one click, I’m gone.
Put an advertised special front and center. Make sure it shows up on any device. Remove friction as much as possible. Do you realize how incredible it is that a prospect would hear or see your ad and then go to your website to learn more?!?! That’s a red-hot prospect. They took action of pulling out a device, saying or typing the web address, and looking for your offer! Treat them online like you would if they walked up to you and said, “I want your offer!” Give them all the information they need and lead them to how they buy.
Security – If you are selling products via your website it better be a secure site (quick check: does the web address start https: or http:? Not sure, use a website source such as SSL Checker to see. Check with your web developer and hosting company about securing the website. If you are not selling but have memberships or other customer data on your site, security is also a top priority.
Speed – Slow load speed kills website traffic. It is a contributing factor to a high bounce rate (Google’s terminology for a visitor coming to your website and leaving from the same page). Load speed can slow when there is too much information on a page (especially images and video that are loading to the page) or due to the speed and use of the hosting server. Again, test it yourself – especially mobile devices when NOT on Wi-Fi – to see how your website and individual pages work.
Clickable Logo – Sometimes it is the little things… In a recent study, over one-third of respondents said when they come to a website via a link (to say a blog or landing page) they click the logo in the header or the page to go back to the homepage. Your visitors aren’t going to look through your menu to find a “Home” link. Again, it’s about reducing friction and obstacles for the user.
Content that Matters – Meaning content that matters to the visitor. Websites should be informative. While you want to make it easy for a visitor to get to where they want to go, once there you want to feed them all they need to take the next step in their buying process. Provide information such as references, articles, technical specs, video, how to’s… any and all information available to a customer or prospect should be on (or linked to) the webpage.
Beyond the Website Checklist
While this website checklist is intended to help improve website effectiveness, it is by no means a complete list. There is much more to consider in the design and operation of a website. Genius! Marketing can help. We’ll work with you on the strategy, planning, building, and operation of a website that will help you reach your sales and financial goals. Contact us to discuss your site or send us your website or marketing questions.
Read an interesting article on Inc.com entitled 7 Presentation Ideas That Work for Any Topic. It contains seven tips for better presentations. The key one is No. 1: build the story first. The story is the thing. I had a college professor back in the day who told me “Successful communication is having the thoughts you have on a subject be transmitted in a way that results in the other person (or audience) thinking the same thoughts.” That’s a high bar. But a good goal.
The key to better presentations is building the story that is compelling as the Inc. article describes as well as gets your message points (especially the ideas that really matter) into the minds of the audience.
Bullets are Okay… But Limit them and the Concepts they Represent
While I disagree with the article on “Eliminate bullet points entirely.”, I do agree that less is more for better presentations… but not just in the words on the slide (use fewer words) but also in concepts communicated. Make it simple. Idea one, two, three… and that’s it.
Then repeat. Because nobody gets it all the first time. Change it up, reapply, describe it differently… but make sure you go over your main points more than once.
Learn more about marketing budgeting and more in the Genius! Marketing book!
I commend the article and suggest you read it for more ideas on better presentations!
For more Marketing Tips from Genius! Marketing, sign up for our Marketing Monday email and buy the Genius! Marketing book! Available on Amazon and coming in ePub! And as always, if you have a marketing question, submit it and we will get back to you. Or maybe write a blog about the subject.
Many conversations I have with companies considering doing some marketing revolve around tactical elements of marketing communications. Or more simply, marketing tactics. Tactics are the specific actionable element of marketing: direct mail, advertising, email, etc.
Companies are often caught up by a specific tactic. For instance, they decide that the latest thing must be their thing. Or they will see a competitor doing something and determine they must implement that tactic as well. Getting fixated on a tactic can be very dangerous.
Take Social Media as an example. Since Facebook started to attract millions of users, companies have been mesmerized by Social Media. The appeal is significant. First of all, it is “free”. Second, anyone can do Social Media. Best of all, there is no barrier to entry. Meaning it is easy to get started: consider the barrier to entry for social media versus the barrier to entry for sending direct mail.
To send a direct mail piece, you must:
Determine content of direct mail.
Find a mailing list of people or companies that might be interested.
Print the mailer (and possibly) insert into envelope.
Apply postage.
Send mailer.
That’s a lot of work.
Compare that with Social Media:
Sign up for an account.
Upload your logo.
Presto! You’re using Social Media for your business. Endless numbers of people can now see your page, profile or posts. :-\
Getting Stuck on Marketing Tactics
Here’s a real-life example that isn’t about Social Media (because you can take about 30 seconds to find a company on Facebook that has two posts and one photo…from 2010 – maybe it’s your own). This example is about an earlier marketing “gold rush”.
Learn more about marketing budgeting and more in the Genius! Marketing book!
Back in the days of Internet 1.0, the owner of a distribution company caught the vision of Internet 2.0. Unfortunately, it wasn’t invented yet. He spent tens of thousands of dollars developing a website that took orders and promised immediate (via FedEx) delivery of large industrial equipment. The site worked because he made it work. It even had “videos” (this is in the day of modems, mind you), or rather multi-image sequences to show product features. Pretty cool.
Too bad it was a total failure. In retrospect, Amazon took ten more years to convince people to buy a book online… why did an industrial specialty distributor think contractors would buy his products that way? He thought that because he became so infatuated with the tactic of marketing via the web that he forgot one critical fact: his customers weren’t ready to buy that way. It turned out he was about 15 years ahead of the curve. I’d call that bleeding edge. It significantly impacted his company’s profitability. His focus got off the real goal: selling product and onto a marketing tactic.
Whatever the specific tactic is, it is a real problem for a single tactic to be the focus of your marketing.
Don’t fall for this myth of marketing: we can do one thing! Make sure your marketing is a solid mix of tactics that is thoughtfully planned and appropriate for your target market.
Learn more about marketing planning and more in the Genius! Marketing book!
Do You Want to Be a Marketing Genius?
Have a great marketing idea? What if instead, you had a great marketing process? Developing a marketing process that integrates with sales is the way to grow sales. And isn’t growing sales the whole point of marketing?
In Genius! Marketing you’ll learn how to build a marketing machine that consistently produces leads and supports sales. You’ll learn how to:
Assess the sales process
Determine and communicate the organizational brand
Write your value proposition and sales messages
Develop a realistic budget for marketing
Create the one thing you must do to have ongoing success
Market from an action-based system
Plus, you’ll learn what to do with all those great marketing ideas you (and others) have for your business.
Genius! Marketing is based on a system that has helped companies successfully market their products and services for over 20 years. This field-tested process will change the way you think about, and more importantly, how you plan and execute marketing. Genius! Marketing is for anyone who is ready to get off the marketing merry-go-round of chasing ideas and the latest marketing trends and developing an effective marketing system.
Marketing is not seen as a highly sought after career by students according to a Marketing Week/Unidays study
According to a Marketing Week study only 3% of students aged 18 – 24 years said that marketing offered the best career opportunity. Medicine led the responses with 16%, followed by management (12%) and engineering (11%). This may be because only 1% of survey respondents said marketing is mentioned in school ‘a lot’, while 51% said that marketing was ‘never’ or ‘hardly ever’ mentioned in school.
Still, the study shows that marketing must have some appeal… 57% of respondents said they would consider a career in marketing. Perhaps students know its a whole lot of fun!
Security – If you are selling products via your website it better be a secure site (quick check: does the web address start https: or http:? Not sure, use a website source such as 
According to a