Marketing - The Bold Approach Method

Recommended Reading For An Effective Marketing Program

I get a lot of email asking what I’m currently reading and studying so I thought I’d give you a quick update on what I’m currently reading and watching. If you are going to have an effective marketing program, you must spend a great deal of time studying not only the usual suspects when it comes to books, but you must also spend time focused on books, videos, courses and programs in other areas as well, some of the areas I regularly study are:

Art
Abstract Thinking
Cognitive Neurology
Biochemistry of Emotions
Beliefs
Mythology
Symbols
History
Psychology

I have a few recommendations that I think you may enjoy.

The Power of Impossible Thinking – This is a great book on mental models and how they apply to people and business. This book is based on the latest neuroscientific research and their experience with corporate transformations. Jerry Wind and Colin Crook explain how your mental models stand between you, reality and success.

What The Bleep Do We Know? – This is a great movie and associated website that studies reality. It goes into Quantum Mechanics, String and M theory in minor detail as the scholars discuss reality. This is a great movie but developed as a hybrid documentary, you don’t know who the experts are until the end (unless you visit the website first). My only criticism of the movie is the choice to include Ramtha as I feel it takes away some of the credibility of the movie's experts. Watch the movie for the thoughts from the nation’s top theoretical physicists, doctors, scientists and thinkers. You’ll learn a great deal you can use.

The Fortune At The Bottom Of The Pyramid – By the great business thinker C.K. Prahalad. This book is a very insightful and thoughtful look at how serving the billions of poor and lowest classes through the world ethically, that businesses can help raise them out of poverty and profit at the same time. There are some very good ideas in this book that any marketer can use now, in this country, whether you ever try and do anything outside of the country.

The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality – Brian Greene is one of the most lucid thinkers in science today. He also takes very complex scientific concepts and turns them into very easy to understand chunks that we can all understand. Great stuff for advertising copy, marketing ideas and more here.

Lovemarks – This is a tremendous book on brands and how your clients relate to them and to your brand and how to start your own love affair with your clients. A must read for every marketer.

Wordcraft – This is a great review of how company naming works. If you are wondering what to name your company or if you should rename your company read this first.

If you have any great books you recommend as part of an effective marketing program, drop me an email and I’ll do a post with reader recommendations in the near future.

Are blogs marketing tools?

Jim Meskauskas of Media Posts believes that corporate blogs will die a very fast death. I personally think he is right and wrong.

As he points out, corporations who blog are really just marketing in another way; and if that is the extent of what they are doing, then they will die very quickly. Corporations however who stop blogging and position themselves and their direct marketing in front of the bloggers who write about their category, stand to gain a lot.

The reason blogs have become such a phenomenon is that people are desperately in search of real information in an age of spin, disinformation and hype. Blogs have the feeling of being able to get an honest look at what someone else thinks and with the number of blogs, an honest look at what a lot of people think.

Consumers are looking for reassurance and research many times results in that reassurance. When bloggers write about their experience and their feelings, buyers tend to give that information more weight than an ad or even a testimonial. Testimonials are part of the influence cycle and in the consumer’s mind, blogs are not . . .at least not to date.

If you are a corporation and you want to use a blog you should, but the best way to use it is to set up a place that you publicize where people can openly talk about your products. If you are a great organization, give your employees free reign to write too. The real problem with corporate blogs really only arises when they are scrutinized, managed, spun and polished. When there is a free and interactive exchange of information, the system continues to work.

For all of you hoping to increase your customer base using blogs, the very best way is simply to contact those bloggers who write about products or issues like yours or, survey your clients and as if they are blogging. In either case, ask them to write about their experience, don’t ask them to write nice things, just that they write about you.

If you are wondering what people really think about you, you should be reading blogs daily, searching for references to your company, they are there. And, it gives you a great opportunity to polish a perfect experience or fix a broken one.

Blogs will be around a long time to come, it is up to you to continue to figure out how to use them appropriately. Stay tuned and we at Bold Approach will do our part to help you navigate the ever changing world of new marketing methodologies.

Creating Great Headlines

Writing powerful headlines no matter what your media is one of the most powerful weapons in your marketing arsenal.

Gary Bencivenga wrote a great article on headlines that I think everyone should read, if you are already a powerful headline writer this is a good refresher, if you need to write better headlines, this is an excellent primer. Gary was rated the top copywriter in America by Boardroom, Inc.

Proof in headlines increases readership tremendously. Read Gary's article to find out how.

For more information on great copywriting, read this.

My first and final word on mixing religion and business. AKA, My sad day with Zig Ziglar

Ok, let me say this clearly before I go off on my rant.

I’m not anti-religion, anti-God, anti-your beliefs or faith. In fact, I believe that everyone must have faith whether it is in God or something else that you believe strongly enough in to have hope.

Today was a really sad day for me.

I just returned (after leaving VERY early) from a Zig Ziglar/Peter Lowe seminar. They promised to have some great speakers including the great Zig Ziglar and Charlie “Tremendous” Jones. I’ve been a fan of Zig Ziglar since I was 12 years old and read my first of many of his books “See You At The Top.” That book and my mom got me started on the road to selling.

Since that time, I’ve attended a number of Zig’s trainings. So, when he showed up in Boise, I thought what a great way to spend a day and to have our staff learn more too. Zig is a great guy.

Then I read the fine print (about 6 point type) there will be a 15 minute discussion of bible leadership principles for those who are interested.

Always a sign of impending danger, mixing religion with business, particularly business that I’m paying to be at; but I thought, oh well, 15 minutes isn’t bad, if Zig wants to save a few souls, that’s his business.

Then I got to the seminar.

It started out with people quoting scripture and didn’t stop, Zig quoted the bible, Charlie Jones quoted the bible, for more than the first three hours of the event.

But wait, I paid for a message of how to sell, how to get fired up in a slump, how to communicate better, how to manage time better (all promises in their full page ad in the paper) and what I got was a sermon and not even a particularly inspiring one.

It is really unfortunate when you watch an Icon’s time expire. And that is exactly what I'm afraid I witnessed today. I’ll never attend another Zig Ziglar event simply because I don’t want to pay to be ministered to. I don’t think I’m alone in my thoughts because when they sent people to the tables to buy their products, rather than a table rush, there was a trickle that could be barely be considered a steady stream, but not the trading floor mêlée you expect at an event that drew nearly 4000 people.

You know, the sad part is this, if they’d have said that this is a religious program right up front, if they would have said that Zig wants to sell you relationship books and tapes (he tried) then they would still have filled the room, likely even fuller than they did, but with people who wanted to be there for those reasons.

Instead, three hours into an all day event, a significant number of the audience started leaving. Two or three at a time, but steadily; in the end, what they had was a smaller audience of believers who would have come anyway and BROUGHT MORE just like them with money to spend if they’d have been honest in their advertising and not alienated a large part of the audience.

So what is the lesson in all this?

Religion and Politics remain a personal issue and your paid seminar is not your pulpit to convert the masses, period.

If you want to save souls then be all means do it, but be honest, be open about what you intend to do, don’t hide behind a six point type disclaimer that isn’t even accurate in the first place.

Zig, you’ve given me a lot through the years and I’ll always remember and apply the early lessons in SELLING that I learned from you and I’ll always be appreciative for the value, income and opportunity they brought me. But, if I want to go to a revival meeting I’ll go see Billy Graham and I won’t pay to be there unless I want to contribute an offering or they let me know right up front that I need to pay for the opportunity to be saved.

Now for those of you that have got this far and decided that I'm Atheist, Agnostic or anything else, I'm not. Let me assure you I respect your beliefs and I have mine (and they are likely very similar to yours) but they are mine and mine alone. In a personal conversation I might share them with you if the conversation came up but I'd never use them to sell to you, that just isn't right.

Iknow with 100% assurance that Zig believes what he says and that he believes that he is doing the highest good. He wants the best for you, for me and for himself.

I sincerely hope that Zig Ziglar will get back to what he does best, teach people the base skills of selling. I'm just afraid that he won't. And because of that . . .

Today was a really sad day for me.

Your brand vs. their brain - How getting it right really matters

We've long talked about the connection between the brain and preference, even taught you specific steps for getting your message into the brain. Well, Read Montague of the Baylor College of Medicine has taken it one step further, he actually tested the brain's reaction to brands by recreating the Pepsi challenge of the 70's and 80's. Read the results for yourself and see why you must deliver a multifaceted customer experience if you ever hope to be the best choice in the mind of your customer.

Another great article is "Thinking for a living."

The New Advertising?

Relevance is something that we've been harping on and teaching advertisers for more than seven years. Your ads must be relevant to the person exposed to them, it much reach them on their level and resonate with them in a way that is meaningful to them.

Obtainium.tv believes that they may be on to something when it comes to the "new" advertising. They believe that advertising produced for products that they love will have more impact than those produced by ad agencies . . . and they could be right. Pabst Blue Ribbon seems to think so. (Aside, the funniest short movie in existence that focuses on PRB is The Accountant, it is also a great commentary on what is happening to farms, industry and so many other things, I highly encourage viewing it)

This will be an interesting experiment in three things, one, does anyone care, two, are the companies profiled smart enough to link to the sites, and three, can they maintain their unpaid objectivity if in fact they are on to something.

On count one, does anyone care? Well, the fact that you are reading a blog would indicate that people are looking for new ideas, treads and truth in new places so from that perspective, they do have a chance. And, the ads could be highly relevant to people who are searching for those products. On count two, the companies likely will be smart enough to link to the microsites, but once a company links to them the suspicion detectors in consumers get turned on and set to high. Finally, in the third case, if this does prove to be the next wave of successful advertising, the creative agencies will be all over it, sponsoring contests like KFC did, allowing people to produce their own video and airing the best viewer ad in primetime. Even if the agencies don't believe in the trend, someone will cash in. My guess is that it will be someone like Obtainium.

In terms of cool, the minute the underground becomes mainstream, the underground starts looking for a new outlet. This may be a short term look at what could be a highly effective advertising medium, or it could be the first look at the end of a great idea whose time is here and on the way out.

What do you think?

P.S. If obtainium.tv wants anyone to really care, they'd better expand their viewing options beyond quicktime movies since many who don't use Apple don't download quicktime as it seems to screw up every other viewer you might want to use.

Walking Billboards Take On A Whole New Meaning

Talk about wanting your MTV.

Starting today, a San Francisco marketer is sending models out in public in T-shirts with built-in television sets.

30-year-old pitchman Adam Hollander, who created the Adver-Wear shirts. His company, Brand Marketers, will debut the T-shirts today at theaters, malls and elsewhere to promote the Fox movie "I, Robot."

An 11-inch flat screen is mounted at chest level in each shirt, and four hidden speakers deliver sound. A shirt weighs about 6 1/2 pounds and costs about $1,000 to make. You can read the whole article in the LA Times.

Creativity goes a long way in marketing, but how much impact will this have? My guess is that it will have very little. But like most things that creative agencies do, the stunt will have a great deal of media impact and that in fact will be effective in getting more coverage for the movie. And, when looking at the effectiveness of a vehicle, you must factor in the value of the exposure through non-paid media.