Matt on Marketing

Seth Godin released Linchpin a couple weeks ago, and it's a fantastic book. I received an advance copy a few months ago, and received a second copy in the mail earlier this week from Seth, with a request to pass it along.

I've done that, and want to pass along my first copy as well. I bought myself a Kindle version, so this first book is still brand-new.

If you want this free, brand-new copy of Linchpin, all you have to do is help me spread Seth's message. Retweet this post about being indispensable including my hashtag (@heinzmarketing) between now and midnight tomorrow (Wednesday, Feb 17) Pacific time. I'll then randomly select a number between one and however many retweets we have, and the random-numbered retweet gets the book.

It’s a question not just of what you do that nobody else does, but of what results you enable – for your team, your business, your clients, your family, your friends, your professional network – that makes you irreplaceable. And highly valuable.

It’s not always in what you do, but sometimes in the way you do it. The speed with which you get things done. The approach you take, the focus on results, the obsession with benefits to those around you.

And it’s not just about you. Your team, your product, your company all can be indispensable. Indispensability is scarcity plus value, which puts you in high demand at a premium price.

Being indispensable has many angles, manifestations and benefits. What are yours?

To learn more about being indispensable, read Seth Godin's new book Linchpin.

The right buyers for your product or service need what you’re selling.  You represent a link between where they are today and where they want to be moving forward.  They want to buy from you.

This applies, of course, to buyers that are not only qualified, but are ready to buy.  The vast majority of qualified buyers just aren’t there yet.  According to a recent MarketingSherpa report, as little as 15 percent of sales leads are both qualified and ready to buy.

Smart sales organizations take a “selling vs simmering” approach to their prospective customers.  If the prospect is in an active buying cycle, they’re ready to work with sales.  The role of sales, in this context, isn’t to sell as much as help the buyer buy what they already need.

Simmering is quite different.  Simmering takes a qualified buyer that doesn’t have an immediate need, and ensures that when they are ready to buy, the decision of whom to buy from is essentially already made.  That means staying in touch on a regular basis, but purposefully not selling.

This takes patience, and discipline.  When your sales manager is breathing down your neck to close more business this quarter, it’s tempting to reach down to some of the prospects that are simmering and push them into a sale.  But those prospects aren’t ready to buy, and pushing them to move more quickly will not only decrease your conversion rates and waste your time, but will also put off the customer such that they may seek products or services (when they’re ready to buy) from someone else.

Your best chance at getting the maximum sales output and conversion rate from the prospects in your pipeline is to know who’s ready to buy now, and who needs more simmering.

There’s a project or opportunity in front of you.  You have two choices.

On one hand, you can just do it.  Have a bias for action, get something together, put it out there, see what works.  Don’t worry about making it perfect, just figure out – quickly – whether it’s worth spending more time on, or shutting down and moving on.

On the other hand, you can take your time.  Do a SWOT analysis, assess the risks, make sure your initial market test is well thought-out, well designed and measured accurately.  This takes time, inherently makes you think about risk, and that risk analysis will shut down the majority of opportunities before they see the light of day.

So which approach is best?  Do you have a bias for action, or does risk analysis/paralysis help you focus on more successful projects from the get-go?

There’s probably no single, right answer for everybody.  There’s also no reason you can’t have different approaches for different types of projects, or different parts of your business.

But I will say this.  No matter how much research, analysis or risk assessment you do, you still have no idea how the market will react to something until you put it out there.

Maybe 10-20 years ago, PR was more about the relationships you had with the right press.  Reporters and their publications were the gatekeeper to getting your story heard, and PR professionals were the gatekeeper to those gatekeepers.  But even then, relationships were only as good (and ultimately as successful) as the story you had to offer.

Today, story matters more than ever.  Yes, a good relationship with press helps you break through the clutter and get a few extra minutes to pitch your story.  But a good story stands on its own.

Plus, you don’t have to rely on a finite set of traditional media outlets to give your story a voice to the masses.  Today, you can publish on your own.  Self-publishing won’t have the audience others have, but that’s not the point.  Share that story in a public forum, that both press and your direct customers/prospects/constituents can read, and a good story can get legs, find unique angles through other storytellers and redistributors, and be shared with countless others. 

Traditional PR was about telling the story of the company in question.  Press releases touted what a company recently accomplished.  Those are stories, but not very interesting stories.

But it’s more than just shifting focus from relationships to good stories.

The stories that get noticed and retold today are about others.  They’re about the impact you have on your customers, their industry, and the people they work with in turn.

Tom Peters wrote recently that people don’t care about your story.  They care about their own story.  Your job, he said, was to become a primary character in your customer’s story.

So if PR today is about the story, and the best stories are about the impact you can have on others, how does that change the storytelling your organization is doing today?  What do you say, where do you say it, and what do you want people who read or hear that story do next?

Who are the customers you go to every time with new product ideas, to see how they react?

What is the market at the very core of what you do - what you sell, what you provide, what you enable?

Who are the people, companies or groups who first saw your product or service, and immediately understood what it was for?  Immediately understood how to use it, and how to benefit from it, with little to no explanation, training or discussion needed?

Those customers are at the tip of your spear.  They represent your primary entry into the market.

When you're just getting started, that's who you focus on.  It's who you build for, count on for feedback, good and bad, and who have the passion and endurance to stick by you as you improve, iterate and mature.

And no matter how big you get, no matter how much you expand to new markets, new products, new extensions - you can't lose focus on these early adopters.  Their guidance and support will lead you longer and higher than you may think.

Hat tip to Howard and TA for talking about this recently.

You write.  It’s really that simple.

Writing comes more naturally for some, but it’s still the most powerful, most efficient, most leveraged way to build and foster an active professional network.

It’s always been a powerful tool, but access to a wider audience was previously restricted to those either with a printing press, or those who could buy or cajole their way into said publications.

Today we have blogs, email newsletters, comments on other people’s blogs, Twitter and various other channels available to us – not to mention a wider array of online and offline publications always on the lookout for good content.  The writing isn’t any easier, but the platforms and means of discoverability have improved dramatically.

Write something noteworthy today, and it’s around forever.  Write something on a weekly basis for five years, and you have hundreds of breadcrumbs demonstrating your insights, smarts, thought leadership and capabilities all over the Web.

Write on a regular basis and people will start to follow what you have to say.  They might not read every piece, but they’ll get enough to stay engaged, keep you top of mind, and accelerate pass-along of you, your interests and ideas to countless others.

Even if writing isn’t your strong suit, it’s a good habit to get started.  It’ll pay you back for a long, long time.

Did anyone else notice the near lack of social media integration in Super Bowl ads this past weekend?  Only a couple ads included a specific and trackable call to action (including Dockers, whose site immediately went down in the minutes after their spot aired), and none that I could see referenced anything on Facebook, Twitter or any other social network.

With a significant percent of Super Bowl viewers simulateously on their computers, and a further opportunity to engage customers and prospects well after their 30-seconds-of-fame, I was surprised to see so few advertisers specifically invite viewers to continue the conversation.

Last night, Expedia brand manager Julie Lowe gave a good explanation at a local Super Bowl Ad Replay event:

"Big companies that spend money on Super Bowl ads have too many different and separated marketing groups, with not enough communication and coordination between them.  The brand or advertising teams likely managed the Super Bowl strategy largely on their own, without thinking about integrating efforts from the social media or direct teams that sit next to them."

Your company or marketing department may be organized into functional groups, but your customer doesn't think that way.  Today's increasingly multi-tasking customer requires a different way of operating, and a new level of cross-platform integration from marketers.

Your company just spent three million dollars on thirty seconds of air time.  Why not capture more value than that?

Of course, most of us aren't running those kind of ads.  But how well does your marketing today take into account the multi-faceted ways customers want to interact with you and each other?  How easy are you making it for them to engage, share, participate - and buy?

The means by which most of us measure customer loyalty is a bit flawed.  Retention is up, attrition is down, and we think all is well.

With sales, it’s easier to boil performance & success down to a number.  Either you closed the sale, or you didn’t.  New revenue is booked and realized, or it’s not.

With retention, it’s a little fuzzier, because not every customer is alike.  Yes, you may have retained 95% of customers last month.  But how many of those customers are raving fans?  How many are frustrated and just sitting out the rest of their contract?

Those are very different customers. One is willing to sing your praises to other current & prospective customers – helping sales and solidifying retention (and possibly success) with some of your other customers.

The less-satisfied customer, unfortunately, may be doing the opposite.  Their frustration is simmering, and they’re telling others about it.  They’re sharing with their colleagues, with peers and other customers via their social channels, and literally closing the door on future revenue opportunities – possibly without you knowing about it.

Our spreadsheets tell us these two customers are the same.  But they clearly are not.

How are you identifying these two customers in your business?  And how are you using that insight to address and improve both the less-satisfied customers, as well as the potential weak points in the product or service itself?

Here are a few links I thought particularly worth a quick read the day after:

Hulu:  See every ad from the Super Bowl again here

USA Today: Which ads scored best with viewers?  Check out the AdMeter

AdWeek: Four reasons why Super Bowl ads are still among advertising’s best bets

AdRants: Summarizing several roundups, there’s no clear winner in this year’s Super Bowl ads

BrandBowl:  How the Twittersphere ranked the advertisers

AdWeek: Super Bowl Ratings & 30-Second Ad Costs since 1969

SearchEngineLand: Great analysis of Google’s ad strategy, reactions, comparisons to Bing, etc.

CNBC: Super Bowl ads the NFL didn’t want you to see

Social Media Journal:  “Advertisers, you really missed the mark this year”

Was it me, or were there very few ads in last night's Super Bowl with a call to action?  There were some memorable images and concepts, as always, but in general there was very little effort placed on driving the viewer to a next step, to a Web site or social media presence where the experience and engagement could continue, where identification, registration and/or sales could happen.

Yes, there were a few URLs at the bottom of ads at the end.  But most appeared to be placed as an afterthought, or at least as a mere boilerplate with very little reason for viewers to go there.

You spend three million dollars on 30 seconds of air time (let alone the cost of creative and all the internal soft costs associated with executing the campaign), and you end up with a nice ad, some nice gameday buzz on Twitter, then what?  When the advertising world is buzzing about which ads were the most creative, what's happening to your brand?  What's happening to sales?

Driving ROI from that investment has very little to do with what the Madison Avenue elite think on Monday.  Is't about what Main Street does on Monday and beyond.  That's where the real value and ROI is created.

Pepsi was absent during the game last night, of course, because they've put that money into a massive social media effort instead. 

Is this the consumer brand equivivalent of having the courage to forego exhibiting at your industry's big trade show?  At the show, a few people may wonder why you aren't there, and you do miss out on grabbing the spotlight (briefly) when everyone's looking in the same place.  But you smartly save your money and divert it to quieter but more effective marketing.  Long-term, are your sales (and strength of your business) better as a result?

Everything had a story.  Every person, every product, every sales opportunity, everything.  Where it came from, how it evolved, why it exists and where it’s headed. 

As a business, you need to know your story.  Where you came from, why you exist, what benefit you provide.  And before you can effectively market and sell your product or service, you need to know that story. 

But before you can do that, you need to know your customer’s unique story.  Not just the story they’re telling the world, but the story behind why they might need you.  What got them to where they are today, what challenge or need or pain has that created, and where are they headed?

Then, your story becomes their story.  You create and communicate a story that takes your prospect from present to future, by telling a story of how wonderful the future will be with your product or service as the enabler of that future.

Stories aren’t about features, or new releases, or tactics.  Your story needs to take into account the past and present, then predict the future.  If done right, your prospects will directly connect with and start to believe that story.  Now you’ve created value.  And it’ll be hard to say no to a good story like that.

I believe you treat everyone with respect.  You give everyone the time of day.  You don’t just intentionally blow people off.

That doesn't mean you take meetings everytime someone wants to "pick your brain", and it doesn't mean you necessarily treat everyone you meet the same (same time, same depth, same attention).  It's just important to remember that we live in a small world, roles change constantly, and your good will today will pay dividends - directly or indirectly - down the road.

Case in point:

Twelve years ago I met John Cook for the first time.  He doesn't remember, but I do.  He was a technology reporter for the Bellevue Journal-American, a small suburban newspaper with a limited circulation.  He gave a talk at a local PR firm about working with the media.  I thought he was a small-timer. 

Thank goodness, despite my lack of maturity and perspective, I didn't share that sentiment with him or anyone else at the time.  Today, John is one of the most influential technology reporters in the Pacific Northwest.  We all start somewhere.

Today's intern could be an influential peer, or even manage your division, in a few years.  She could start her own company and become an important, revenue-generating partner to your business.

The sales rep you blew off at the last trade show?  You might have something you want to sell him in your next job.  And the reporter for that third-tier trade publication may get a job at Business Week down the road.

You never know.  Why risk those opportunities in the future by blowing them off today?

I’m hearing more and more people express pride over the fact that they no longer carry business cards, and consider the rest of us archaic for doing so.  That feels a little short-sighted to me.

Would the world be more efficient if business cards no longer existed?  I doubt it.  I still consider business cards an important part of my networking and follow-up process.

As a business card recipient, that little piece of thin cardboard is a reminder that I met you, a reminder to follow-up, and the fastest way possible to – in the moment when we’ve met, wherever that context may be – get your contact information for future follow-up.  Sure, it might be nicer to just “bump” your iPhones and transfer the contact information.  But then it’s too easy to forget to follow-up, forget that article I promised to send to you, etc.

In almost every context I can think of where I’ve met a new person, the last thing I want to do at that point is bury my nose in my laptop or smartphone and type someone’s complete contact information, plus any next steps or to-do’s based on that conversation.  I can take care of that later, just grab a card and continue focusing on the individual, not their digits.

As a business card distributor, most of the world still asks for them.  Yes, at technology events they might be waning in volume & impact.  A little.  But most of the rest of the world wants a card.  If you don’t have one to give them, you’re missing out on any number of opportunities to network, get business or otherwise share mutually-beneficial information with that person – both now and down the road.

Do you still use business cards?  Do you have an effective process for not only collecting and distributing them, but also processing them (the information and next steps) after you receive them?

Let’s say you’re in charge of a meeting space.  It could be at a hotel, a convention center, a sporting venue, whatever.  How do you keep that space full of big groups & happy customers throughout the year?  Here are some effective best practices used by successful hotel and meeting space marketers.

Past Customers:  It’s surprising how often past customers are left alone, or only approached infrequently with a new sales pitch.  If your past customers enjoyed their last event or meeting with you, stay in touch.  Don’t just pitch them a new sales offer or deal every time you call or email, either.  Send them ideas to improve their events, share articles of event management best practices, and otherwise present yourself not just as a venue, but as a true partner and value-added source of insight and information.  And truly, just by staying in more frequent touch with those past customers you’ll see more returns and repeat bookings.

Ideal Customer Profiles:  Consider your unique venue.  What kind of organizations or events do you attract?  Can you attract?  Get to know that customer profile better than you do today.  When they hold events, why?  What are their objectives?  What are they trying to accomplish, for which the venue and/or event is just a means to an ends?  Help your customers find the shortest line between a partnership with your venue and their ultimate business objectives, and you’ve established even more value.

How Are You Different?:  What is your unique value proposition?  How are you different than other potential meeting spaces?  How does this value proposition map directly to the ideal customer profiles mentioned earlier?  Once you’ve identified your unique value (and selling) proposition, look through your current sales & marketing materials and ensure that value is represented.

Drip Marketing:  Give your prospects information, news, articles and other value-added content they can use.  Whether or not they immediately book with you, build value as a partner who knows how to put on a successful event.  Be a thought leader and educator for your prospects and past customers.  Publish via a newsletter, your blog, Twitter feed. 

The Social Media Two-Way Street:  Use social media channels to find prospective event manager clients.  Search for event managers on Twitter and LinkedIn.  Join event management groups and discussion boards, and participate with value-added content and responses based on your experience.  Publish updates on your venue through these channels, but more often than not participate and share as a peer.  You’ll gain valuable credibility and trust, which will help those prospects lean your directly when they’re ready to buy.

Testimonials:  Ensure every happy customer is recorded in a variety of formats (written word, audio, video, etc.) with their success story.  Get them on record talking about how great the venue was, how great the service was, how successful they were at achieving their event’s business objectives.  Let your customers sell for you.

Host a Networking Night:  Why not create an evening where event managers can get together, have a cocktail, share best practices, maybe even hear a speaker talk about how to put on a more successful event?  Make it 100% value-added for the event managers.  Just by hosting it in your facility (you can offer tours, and collect names/email addresses for follow-up), you’ll get great exposure to a very targeted audience.

Be Unexpected & Memorable:  What can you do uniquely and memorably for participants at each event to remember you, tell their friends, and beg to come back again?  Every venue has a set of low-cost but high perceived-value opportunities to make a big impression on event managers, executives and attendees.  Think about what this is for your venue, and test it.