Marketing Joint

Between Facts and Hype

Somewhere between facts and hype sits persuasion. Hype alone is not credible. Lost credibility is impossible to gain back. Facts alone are meaningless. Facts need to be meaningful by addressing customer realities head on. Tech marketing is oftentimes a large dose of both hype and facts. You should not try to support the hype with facts nor attempt to make facts more meaningful or exciting with hype.

Understand customer realities then work back to why and how your facts are meaningful to that customer. Then, you'll feel no shame hyping it up. This is a good way to get on course to truly persuading your future customers.

- John

KFC's $10 Challenge

KFC is running a great promo right now called the "$10 Challenge." You may have seen the television commercial (click here for the video).

Excerpt from their site:

"KFC challenges Americans to see if they can create a family meal for less than $10. With Colonel Sanders’ secret herbs and spices, KFC knows families can’t recreate this delicious meal for any price. For busy families on a budget, KFC’s 7-Piece Value Meal is the only value offer that is a real family meal for less than $10 as it includes chicken, a side and biscuits for $9.99."

Kudos to KFC. They make great fried chicken and understand the art and science (math?) of persuasion.

- John

Leadership Lesson From The Dodgers

Over a year ago, I wrote a blog about my frustrations with the Los Angeles Dodgers. I got pretty heated up because I truly bleed Dodger Blue. In my September 2007 blog, I wrote about some pretty specific stuff. Namely, I wrote that Grady Little is to blame for their stretch run collapse. It was widely reported in the media that the '07 Dodgers were spending more time and energy on internal warfare than on winning the pennant.

Look at the Dodgers of this year. Under new manager Joe Torre, the Dodgers play the first game of the NLCS tonight against the Philadelphia Phillies. This year, the team actually overdelivered during the stretch run - the exact opposite of last year. Torre has also made a clear cut decision on how he would approach the season. He placed a bet on the young guns and got the veterans to buy in wholeheartedly. Today, future stars like Martin, Kemp, Ethier, and Loney are everyday position players who bring their "A" game to the park day-in and day-out. Veterans like Kent, Furcal, and Pierre play supporting roles with full commitment. Superstar Manny Ramirez (in his own category) crushes homers and keeps everybody relaxed and loosened up.

Most Valuable Brands

Interbrand published their "Best Global Brands" report for 2008 last month ((Downloadable PDF Here). I won't get into the exact methodology here but they basically assign a monetary value to a company's brand asset.

I actully read this kind of stuff with excitement but you can skip to the last page since it contains the full list of top brands. How many of these brands make their way to your home or wallet?

I counted 43 brands for our family. Now, I'm beginning to wonder how much in brand premiums I paid over the years.

- John

Trusted Brands

Google CEO talks about how false information is flourishing on the net in this AdAge article.

Right Brain vs. Left Brain

Go to THIS LINK FOR THE TEST to see if you're right brain or left brain ...

Executive vs. Manager

What are some key differences between an executive and manager? Such a question typically results in esoteric dialogue. It doesn’t have to be that way – at least not for startups.

To get a true picture of the difference, one must look at the general knowledge worker within the framework of a corporate entity. A knowledge worker pretty much assesses situations, makes decisions, and performs the necessary work. Managers frequently use the work of others (i.e., staff) to carry out those decisions. But, ultimately, the manager is combining knowledge and decision making to affect results.

SEM at B2B Tech Startups - Just Flirting

Search Engine Marketing, or SEM, is a pretty sexy topic. What is Search Engine Marketing? SEM is basically a form of online advertising. SEM connects buyers with sellers. SEM is part of your company’s efforts to increase upstream traffic or visits to your site. In my mind, SEM is not search engine optimization (or SEO). I’d say SEO is a subset of SEM. Further, SEM cannot fully realize its profit-driving potential without SEO. SEM is used quite effectively by most consumer-facing marketers but not used frequently enough by B2B tech startups.

SEM is a vital component of the overall marketing mix for those who are addressing the consumer marketplace. SEM is less popular in the B2B arena for a variety of reasons but this is slowly changing.

Why Startups Fail

You can surf the Internet and find endless articles on why startups fail. Most of these articles focus on finding the right market opportunity and some place undue attention on the “DNA” aspects of getting a startup … well ... up and running. By “DNA,” I’m referring to getting the right team together, infusing a level of agility into the structure and process, and so on. It's definitely important to go after the right market opportunity and invest in great, smart people. But, that's kinda like saying you need to be healthy and on the right course to win a marathon.

I want to talk about an area that deserves its own focused coverage – startup myths. Plenty of myths exist at startups. Ping pong tables and free meals. Unfortunately, those are becoming myths.

Much of what you learned or picked up through years of experience working at large(r) corporations are often rendered useless at most startups. This is a hard pill to swallow for some people. Taking the baggage of conventional thinking into a startup leads to frustration or, worse, lengthy paralysis or inaction.

Let’s breakdown a few of these myths …