“Be interesting, be enthusiastic…and don’t talk too much.”                                                                                                                               – Norman Vincent Peale

Like you, I’ve given companies, associations, causes, etc., permission to send me information on topics, product information and promotional offers. I knew going into this that some of these companies would be smart enough to know how to market online to their permission-based group and others wouldn’t have a clue. And I’ve been right on both counts.

Permission-based marketing is now at the heart of relationships between companies and their customers and prospects. People opt-in to receive your emails, “Like” your company on Facebook, subscribe to your website’s RSS feed or your You Tube channel, or follow you on Twitter or LinkedIn. But having permission to market to someone isn’t a license to bombard them with marketing messages.

In fact, not knowing when to “zip it” is a classic marketing mistake that too many marketing people make. If marketing is about building relationships with customers, over-marketing is the best way to kill the relationship and send the customer or prospect heading for the door. Just recently, yesterday to be exact, I came across a really interesting study entitled “The Social Breakup” prepared by ExactTarget, a company that provides clear evidence of what happens to customer relationships when the marketer comes on too strong:

• 91% of consumers have unsubscribed from permission-based marketing emails
• 81% of consumers have either “unliked” or removed a company’s posts from their Facebook.

Guess the biggest reason people break up with companies? (Drum roll)…Too much marketing. The study showed that:

• 54% of consumers unsubscribe when emails come too frequently;
• 63% of customers have “unliked” a company on Facebook due to excessive postings.

On that note, let me tell you a quick story about an industry association I did some freelance consulting for. Within their business specialty, they were the largest association in the country but people were increasingly not renewing their membership. After talking to the marketing department and executive management, two recommendations were made: 1) Cut in third the number of emails and direct mail pieces that were being sent out; 2) Find out why people were not renewing. Well, they didn’t like the first recommendation but did ‘humor’ me by taking my advice about doing the research.  When the member survey report was finalized it said that the #1 reason for members not renewing was a direct result of their being really bothered by the sheer number of emails they were receiving. Guess what the association did? They disregarded the research and went back to doing what they were doing…no lie!

So, how do you know when you’re over-marketing and about to kill a customer or prospective relationship? It can be a fine line, but here are some principles to guide your marketing planning to avoid this costly error.

1. Ask your customers. The best way to understand how customers and prospects feel about the frequency of your promotions is to ask them. If most tell you the frequency is “about right,” then you’re on the right path.
2. Measure your opt-outs. Count the number of people who are cutting off their dialogue with you by unsubscribing to emails, unfollowing you on Twitter, and unliking you on Facebook. If the numbers are escalating, over-marketing could be why.
3. Understand your customer relationships. A customer who rarely or sporadically orders has a different relationship with your business than one who orders all the time. Regular customers might welcome frequent promotional emails with special deals, but sporadic customers are more likely to be turned off by too much marketing.
4. Follow your own firm. Opt-in to your own promotions to put yourself in the customer’s or prospect’s shoes and find out what it’s like to be on the receiving end of your promotional messages. If even you get tired of hearing from your company, you’ll know it’s time to turn down the volume.
5. Deliver more value. People may opt-in in hopes of getting deals from you, but a lasting relationship between a brand and a customer goes beyond special promotions. When you deliver content, insights, access, and other exclusive advantages that only those who have opted-in can receive, you create real reasons for the relationship to flourish.
6. Coordinate your efforts. If there’s a few departments in your company sending out emails, Tweets, and Facebook posts to customers and prospects, this lack of coordination can create some permission-based chaos. In order to avoid over-promoting, set some boundaries and coordinate your efforts.
7. Compare with that of your competitors. Take a look at the marketplace to get a handle on the volume or permission-based marketing activities. If you’re marketing much more frequently than your competitors, you could be the smartest marketer in the bunch or the one that people hesitate to start a relationship with because you talk too much.

At the end of the day, people opt in because they want to hear from you. But if you disrespect the relationship by coming on too strong, customers and prospects will flee. Treating your customers and prospects well is common courtesy; treating their permission to market to them as a gift is even better…it’s a smart marketing strategy. Have a wonderful holiday season.

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”  – Soren Kierkegaard

The last quarter of 2012 is almost history and as we welcome 2013 in just 33 days from today, we hope for a future that is successful, rewarding and where dreams will be realized. Having seen the start of more than a few “new business years” during my career, I’ve learned that you can do one of two things in preparation for a new business year. You can yet again try to create a brand new marketing strategy for the coming year or you can pause, look back and do some serious reflecting, resolving to change, or improve some aspect about how you will initiate your future marketing campaigns.  For some people, looking back over the past year may be something better left in the rearview mirror; on the other hand, burying your head in the sand can be seen as the primary ingredient in a recipe for another disappointing year…and you know how much the CEO/President/Owner/Founder loves that kind of thinking and pending poor results. So before one celebrates the dawn of a new year…take time to ask yourself what are you going to do to change? What does success in 2013 look like to you and your executive management team?

Speaking for myself and our firm, the end of each year is met with a healthy dose of optimism for the coming year. We see 2013 through a lens of hopefulness, that things will indeed get better. Is that just us or will you and your organization also view the coming year with a level of anticipation that you haven’t had for a few years? Hey, it’s been tough for most everyone out there but let’s remember that at least a few organizations — perhaps your own competitors — have fared better than most despite hard times. They’ve not wasted a good recession by sitting still. So what have they done to plot a course for a more optimistic and profitable path for success in 2013?

Depending on marketplace factors coupled with how well you were able to strategically position your company, the past year was either seen as a success or another year of disappointment. Success if you were able to grow your share of the proverbial pie (maybe at the expense of your competitors) or be sufficiently positioned to stay in business to fight the fight for another year. Or disappointment if things didn’t turn out so well because…(you can fill in the blank). The question that begs to be asked here is, how much last year’s success or disappointment was because of something you had no control over, such as good luck or bad luck, and  how much was because of something you did or didn’t do given how the marketplace was shifting?  I’ve found through personal experience this is the time to ‘come clean’ and be honest with yourself.

Hey, I’m all for a bit of luck but you probably don’t want to continue betting future success on lucky things happening in the coming year.

With this in mind, here are a few questions to ask yourself as thought starters as you begin the process of looking in the rearview mirror to last year and through your windshield to the next:

• What marketing activities worked for you and which ones didn’t in 2012?
• What 2-3 trends did you notice took place in your industry and outside of it that you need to incorporate into 2013 activities?
• What 5 pieces of really good customer feedback did you receive this past year that you need to take deliberate action on?
• Is there one part of your marketing activities that if it got more attention could yield better results?
• What are the 2 mission-critical initiatives that absolutely need to be accomplished by June 30^th?
• What are the top 3-5 problem areas that could impact your bottom line or stunt the growth of your brand if you don’t tackle them now?
• What are the 3-5 opportunities that could grow your bottom line, brand visibility and preference?

As marketers, one thing we know for sure is that change will not stop in 2013. The economy will continue to shift on us —hopefully with less drama. But by reflecting back on 2012, taking control of your marketing activities rather than being tossed around by the waves in the marketplace, along with thinking optimistically about what 2013 can hold, 2013 might actually be a year worth celebrating.  It will be for us and hopefully will be for you as well.

I’m so glad it’s over. Probably like you, my home phone was being called at an increasing rate the closer that we got to Election Day. Candidate faces and names were everywhere and on everything from direct mail to lawn signs, outdoor boards to TV and radio commercials.  As annoying as it was, there were a number of messaging strategies and tactics that caught my attention because they were executed exceedingly well, which we as marketers should consider adding to our communication toolkits for use tomorrow, next week or next month. For as we all know, your customer and prospects are still being bombarded with marketing messages each and every day by both you and your competitors.

So let me share with you some strategies and tactics used by politicians leading up to November 6^th  that are worth remembering.

1)      Understand the takeaway
Truth is, these folks do have some things to teach us marketers, particularly regarding messaging. They see the world a bit differently than we do, and use techniques most people didn’t learn in school or on the job, such as: It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear. You can have the best message in the world, but the person on the receiving end will always understand it through the prism of his or her own emotions, preconceptions, prejudices, and existing beliefs. We focus too much of our energy on finding the best way to sell our message, and too little on understanding the filters consumers have as we deliver it. Political marketers care more about takeaways than inputs.

2)     Make it look good
Have you seen the biographic videos produced by the two Presidential candidates? They were extraordinarily well done. A number of other political ads were also well done from a storytelling and video perspective. They stayed on message knowing the one critical point (not 4 or 5 points) that they want to make sure was communicated. The videos were shot and narrated well. They didn’t hire amateurs to do their work but had expert writers and producers creating the content. Like with your business, there’s too much at stake to do cheap stuff because everyone knows what cheap means. People interpret what your company/brands stands for based on the quality of creative and the media channel it’s presented on. Don’t go out until you look good.

3)     Be the genuine article
Business marketing sometimes seems to stretch the truth a bit too much. When marketing messages are sufficiently public and sufficiently wrong, the press will get wind and call you on the truth of your marketing. Transparency of your brand could never be more important. It is less about giving the appearance of perfection and more about being genuine and human as we build relationships. While it’s critically important to tell your story and the benefits of your product or service, it’s not fine to lie about them. My mom use to tell me “Lies have short legs.” Meaning, you can’t outrun the truth …so don’t stretch it very far.

4)     You are who you say you are
In the world of politics, I would argue that there’s nothing as important as branding and having people recognize what the brand stands for. Brand consistency is always maintained.  Unlike politicians, too many companies struggle with this, swinging wildly from one branding concept to another. Everything from the taglines, to the logos, to the visuals has been choreographed beautifully. Get your branding figured out right now. Here are a few questions to ask yourself to determine if your branding is clear:

• Could your customers tell you what your tagline is?
• Could company employees draw your logo?
• Can any employee explain in 10-15 seconds why your company can do it better than the competition?

5)     Be social..not antisocial
Politicians don’t just post stuff to their respective Twitter or Facebook accounts and hope people will read it. Rather, they actually engage with their social media audience. They post images and video. They have their immediate families and supporters use social media regularly. How is your company using social media to spread the good word about your company? I’ll be the first to say that spending a lot of time, money and resources on social media is not right for every company, maybe even yours, but without some presence, you’re letting the competition become more visible and be seen as a legitimate business partner at your expense.

6)     Telling the story again and again
Why are some political ads annoying? Some of it is the content, but I think most of the annoyance is the quantity of political advertising as elections draw near. But politicians know one thing: without a communications budget that allows you to be out in the market in a way that shows you’re “a player”, you won’t get the job done. Far too many companies who do ‘invisible marketing’ base their companies short and long term success on thinking that customers will pick them over a brand that’s actively marketing and better known. The takeaway is that repetition is key …but too much repetition annoys.

As I said earlier, I’m glad the madness of the political advertising season is over but I’m grateful to have learned a few things because each and every day customers and prospects are voting who they want to do business with.  Let the winner be you.

A friend and I were watching a football game on TV when a commercial came on for a paint retailer.  At the end of the commercial, my friend said “I don’t trust them for a minute. They don’t look or sound the part at all.” I started thinking about why some companies are trusted and others aren’t.  And so I’ll pose the question to you: in today’s marketplace, with people not wanting to be sold to but rather base their purchase decision on many other factors, is your company better off just selling products and services or selling trust along with your products?

One of the greatest demonstrations of selling trust came about years ago when Chrysler Corporation was being dragged back from the brink of extinction by its then CEO, Lee Iacocca. Chrysler was seen as having a flawed product and not to be trusted to build a good car. Lesser men would have resorted to selling at the cheapest price with giant discounts and 0% interest. They would have also gone down with the ship by making futile arguments about the features/benefits of the cars. Iacocca rejected this thinking and instead sold his personal guarantee…his promise…by saying “If you can find a better car, buy it.”

So then, what are the few key factors that will make your business such a trusted and relied-on presence in your customers’ lives that they will stay with you – and spend with you – for many, many years?

As I write this, virtually every advertiser, marketer and seller struggles in an un-trusting world. The public has very, very, scorched fingers and badly-bruised confidence. The temptation to overcome this mistrust with stronger product pitches, cheaper prices or deeply discounted fees – did I mention, cheaper prices – is enormous.  And dangerous. To do so worsens the fundamental problem of low trust and deprives you of the finances needed to effectively market at all.

Unfortunately, and we all see it in our personal and business lives, there are bunches of companies out there who are “hit and runners.”  They’re more in the business of getting customers to make sales rather than making sales to get customers. The first provides only income. The second provides income and equity. It’s sort of like the difference between dating and a long-term marriage. It’s about being there and having the other person’s back. That the other knows you care about them. That you find ways to stay interesting and relevant over the years. Sad but true, most marketers don’t really think about a long-term marriage with customers. They take it for granted or give it no importance. They’re focused on income not equity. Like you, I buy things from stores or service providers where not even a feeble attempt at creating an ongoing relationship is made. I think the thinking is “We did OK, he’ll be back.” Well, maybe and then again maybe not.

So, what can companies do from a marketing standpoint to start the process of building trust within the minds of their current and prospective customers?  Here are eight thought-starters:

1. Be transparent in your marketing! Never promise anything you can’t follow through with! Don’t have a great offer but with a string attached that’s a deal breaker for most people.  Make it simple, straightforward and beneficial.
2. Let customers know of organizations you are members of as well as awards/accomplishments your company has achieved. On your website, you can link to many of these organizations. A little bit of acknowledging someone else never hurts.
3. Be involved with a worthwhile cause not because it might look good but because it’s important to help others. Find a cause that might be relevant to local needs (i.e collect old coats for the needy), or a cause that’s close to your heart (i.e. Special Olympics).
4. Follow up with customers to make sure they are happy with your product or service. The worst thing that could happen would be for an unhappy customer to post a negative comment about your business transaction on Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, AngiesList, etc.
5. Think creatively about what you can guarantee that will make you stand out. For example, tell customers you’ll return every inquiry within 12 hours or that all appointments will be met on-time. State some facts that distinguish you from the competition and fulfill them over and over again.
6. Watch your language and avoid puffery. Your “state-of-the-art” new widget will not “revolutionize” business or “totally change” life as we know it. Consumers have seen and heard it all. You can also use humor to crack the trust wall so long as it’s on message and makes customers remember you.
7. Treat employees the way you want them to interact with customers and you’ll be developing brand ambassadors. Everywhere employees go, they will talk up the benefits of your company.
8. Be sure your marketing materials come across as authentic..not cheesy, cheap or full of clichés. Oh, and make sure that they look and sound better than your competitors’. People take their cues on whether to trust/do business with a company based on what the marketing/advertising looks like and where it’s placed. Don’t be penny wise and pound foolish.

So, while we as marketers understand that we’re in the business of helping drive revenue for the company among other challenges, let’s not lose track of the fact that it’s always easier to derive sales from an existing customer versus that of a new customer. And that only happens if they trust you. And they’ll only trust you if you look and act the part. Don’t have your company be a “poser”…you’ll be found out!

by Rolf Gutknecht, Agent of Change (c) 2012

A friend of mine sent me a video by email last week that, as a marketer, I loved. It was one of those ‘old school’ videos featuring “America’s best salesman”…Elmer Wheeler, who’s message is as relevant and meaningful today as it was when he delivered in the 60’s. After watching it a number of times, and because of the subject matter, it made me think of an interesting way to look at what the brand experience is all about.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW6HmQ1QVMw]

So here goes:

Imagine that you and your significant other decide to go to a well-known, fancy-schmancy steakhouse for a special night out dinner. Have that in your mind? Good. Now, picture another steakhouse of similar reputation. Both of the steakhouses prepare the same quality of steak but with one difference….. whereas the first restaurant makes a steak the way it’s supposed to be made (a thick clean cut, placed on the center of the plate) and presented with some tasty vegetables nicely positioned on the side and professionally put on the table, the second restaurant has a similar plate presentation but with no steak on it. Their steak gets delivered just a minute later on a hot stone tablet to your table…simmering and sizzling. The waitress presents the steak with elegance, and sprinkles some salt and pepper on top. While the aroma of the steak makes your mouth start to water and the sizzle gets your full attention, she begins to tell the story of the family who own the vineyard of the wine you selected. What a different brand experience that is! Same item, same quality, different way to engage the consumer. The difference isn’t about the steak but rather about the sizzle.

So why does the “sizzle” matter?

1. Anyone can make good steak

As we know, product or service quality is a fragile thing. No matter how many patents you have, how well you have integrated your supply chain and perfected your quality standards, no matter how much money you spend on R&D, anyone who really, really wants to go after you will eventually copy what you do or make and perhaps even perfect the product you so passionately protected.

2. The sizzle is a difficult thing to copy

Branding, brand equity and brand engagement are difficult to copy. They are strongly linked to your brand, and your brand alone. The depth of everything “surrounding” the product is complex, deep and interwoven with stories, emotions, associations, you name it…all those good things that make a brand unique!

3.      The sizzle adds the emotional layer

Back to the restaurant example: Guess what? People will come back for more. Not just for the steak, but for the feeling they get when they are IN that experience. Human beings thrive on emotions, and seek repeat of pleasure.

Now, I’m not suggesting for one minute to only focus on the sizzle. Without that good, juicy, perfectly cut and excellently cooked filet mignon steak there is no reason to add sizzle in the first place! The sizzle is the icing on the cake; without cake there is no need for the icing.

Selling the sizzle and not the steak is something good marketers have known since forever. Give your customers the meal that they desire…and they will come back for it time and time again.

by Rolf Gutknecht, Agent of Change (c) 2012

I’m not sure about you, but in the deluge of emails that comes my way each and every day, it’s real easy start deleting them without even thinking about whether there’s content that might make my life and that of my clients easier and better. So, I stopped doing that about 6 months ago and now take the time to open each one and at the very least scan for interesting info. Maybe I’ll see something about trends, or research data, facts, or a tidbit about helpful hints. Without doing so, I’d miss out on stuff I should know about and, respectfully said, that’s probably the case with you as well.

Well, with your indulgence, I wanted to share with you 10 pieces of information that you may not be aware of which in turn will help you grow your business by seizing on untapped revenue-producing opportunities. So, here goes:

• Recent stats released by Google show that 1 in 7 searches originate on a mobile device and of those, 1 in 3 are looking for a local business.  A report from IDC last spring forecasts that search traffic from mobile will surpass desktop and laptop based search in the next 2½ years.  With search and traffic trending toward mobile, what are you doing to ensure your online properties are constructed to support and look good on mobile devices? Opportunities could be lost otherwise.
• Are you having trouble finding content for your blog and newsletters? Luckily, there is a host of free tools that can make finding content for your blog or email newsletter easier, regardless of the topic. But before you start using these tools, you’ll need a list of keywords related to your hot topics. The five free content sources that can inspire ideas for your email newsletters, blog posts, articles and other marketing materials are: 1) Google Alerts 2) Scoop.it 3) Alltop 4) Digg and 5) Delicious.
•  Strategy = social media success. Research shows that organizations achieving the most success with social media are ones who select channels LAST. Instead, they formulate and follow a strategic plan, complete with objectives, target audiences, success metrics and more. Being everywhere is not the goal. Being effective at what you do is.
• YouTube delivers more than entertainment. A well-executed YouTube strategy can actually drive business to your company and boost search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. As the world’s second largest search engine, YouTube is a smart option for extending your reach through a branded channel or sponsored advertisements (the ones that precede videos).
• Email is the dominant digital communication channel of our day. According to ExactTarget’s 2012 Channel Preference Survey, email today is the channel they prefer for permission-based marketing messages. In fact, an overwhelming 77% of all consumers surveyed prefer to receive promotional messages from companies via email compared to 5% who prefer text messages and 4% who prefer Facebook. Today, if you want to drive retention and repeat usage, there isn’t a better way to do it than email.
• Although affluent Americans are spending more time online and adopting mobile devices at an exponentially increasing rate, traditional media channels still have great reach among these estimated 59 million US adults with $100,000 in annual household income, according to an Ipsos MediaCT survey released in September 2012. And when it comes to ad receptiveness, the largest proportion of affluents surveyed said they were most receptive to ads on TV, followed by magazines and newspapers.
• According to  eMarketer, tablet penetration will reach 29.1 percent of Internet users by the end of 2012. And according to another research study, tablets’ share of website traffic is on track to exceed the traffic of smartphones by early next year. Importantly for marketers, tablet consumers over-index among affluents: 60% of tablet users live in households with annual incomes of $75,000 or more.
• The rise of mobile shopping has been a bit of a double-edged sword for some marketers, especially retailers. With shoppers able to comparison-shop on their smartphones while standing in the aisles, there’s been a troubling rise in “showrooming,” the consumer practice of checking out products in store, then buying the cheapest one online. The two biggest challenges brick-and-mortar retailers face are getting traffic and then converting the traffic into a sale. Customer loyalty programs and manufacturer supported/paid-for in-store merchandising are on the rise. Due to the competitive environment, retailers are likely to lean harder on manufacturers.
• Baby Boomers make up approximately 40% of consumer demand and companies who see this audience as a big source of revenue are still relying on — and growing media budgets for — “old school” channels like newspapers, television and outdoor.  Online usage with the group is growing but “old” is still king.
• Based on the results of Exhibit Surveys, Inc. Annual Trade Show Trends report,  81% of trade show attendees in 2011 had the power to make a purchasing decision or influence the purchasing decision and 35% of attendees reported that their intent to buy was more favorable after visiting an impactful company’s exhibit.  This means that for businesses that exhibit, the value of attending trade shows lies not only in meeting decision makers or influencers in the buying process but also in building brand loyalty and brand awareness.

As I said, it’s easy to delete a bunch of good information that comes your way because of time constraints, being short staffed or being overwhelmed with email after email.  But this is all good information that I received and looked over before I hit the delete key.  If you’ve read this far, you’ve made the same thoughtful decision as well.

by Rolf Gutknecht, Agent of Change (c) 2012

We grew up with the belief that the best idea always wins. The best person always wins. If you build a better mousetrap people will beat a path to your door. That might have been true when the world wasn’t inundated with one sales and marketing message after another. But the fact is, today the best idea does not win. The best idea does not get credit and the best product does not win if nobody pays attention in the first place. (Take 5 more seconds and reread that last sentence and let it wash over you.)

It doesn’t matter how great your blog is if nobody reads it. It doesn’t matter how creative your ad is if you don’t have money to run it. It doesn’t matter if you’re the best food manufacturer, if nobody buys your products. It doesn’t matter if you’re the best hospital if people in need go elsewhere. It’s not about being the best. It’s about finding a way that you can take who you are, what you make, and what you offer and create a relationship with prospects and current customers that is instantly captivating.

Think of it like this. Imagine that on the other side of the door from where you are is where relationships happen, loyalty happens, sales happen, profits happen.  On the other side of the door, success awaits.  But to get there, we have to get through the door. And before we do that, we have to knock.  And if we can knock in a compelling, persuasive and interesting way and introduce ourselves, and if we provide people/customers with messaging and content that is instantly captivating, and if we knock in the right way, then the door opens and we get to go through to the side where all the good stuff lives. But to ignore the door that you have to go through is setting yourself up for failure.

The reason is that we live in a world with ADD due in large part to the addictive nature of the Internet. The average attention span used to be 5, 10, 15 minutes, but now, the average attention span today is roughly 9 seconds. Nine seconds! Your brand might only get 9 seconds to communicate a message, earn a little bit of loyalty, build a little bit of trust so you can continue the conversation before your customer starts getting distracted!  Nine seconds isn’t a lot of time, so what could you possibly say in that time or less to get someone’s attention? I think it starts with presenting your message in a way that’s captivating in clever and unexpected ways. It grabs people’s attention and has them focusing on the message and not thinking about the other stuff that could come into their mind. They’re engaged…captivated. In doing so, you start connecting with them, which allow you to persuade them.  Get them to trust you.  Get them to believe you. Get them to want to connect with you. So when your competitor tries to pull them away, they stay loyal.

Having been in the advertising/marketing business for quite a number of years, working on Fortune 100 accounts and mom-and-pops, and everything in between, I’ve seen and learned a few things I want to pass along:  As a company, you have a choice. You must either have an enormous budget to make sure no one in your category can compete with you OR you have to captivate people’s attention. With a big budget you can drive awareness through exposure over and over again to make sure you get your message out in front of your customer – even if you have a boring message.  The other choice is if you don’t have the biggest budget (raise of hands please), in which case you have to have a captivating message so customers will pay attention, listen, remember and act upon it. What you can’t do is NOT have the biggest budget and NOT have a compelling, fascinating, attention-getting message at the same time. Then you fail and go out of business. That’s just the fact! My guess is that you could name a few companies in your business category that are no longer around because they were ho-hum..right?

Forgettable and boring marketing materials, tiresome page-turning ads  or lackluster customer service will not get it done. People forget stuff in under 9 seconds if it’s anything less than captivating, enamoring or entrancing. Ask yourself why it is that you remember some ads or marketing messages.  It’s not because they look or sound like every other company or ad or they use business babble that says nothing. Not a chance. You remember them because they had a strong, unexpected point of view and a distinctive message. They were captivating.

So, as you begin planning for 2013 and thinking about how to make it the best year yet, I’d ask that you reread the title of this blog and use it as the mantra for your future marketing initiatives. It’s that significant.

At my daughter’s college volleyball game this past weekend, I struck up a conversation with a guy who let it be known that he was the Director of Marketing for a company that owned a few hospitals.  Knowing something about hospital marketing, I asked him about his competitor’s marketing activities and he then told me he thought one competitor was doing this and that another was doing something else…he thought. I asked him how sure he was about those things and he said “Honestly, that’s why I said ‘I think that’s what they’re doing’ because I really don’t know for sure.”

With more work to do with less people, budgets and services, along with not putting in place research that would tell them differently, it’s easy to see why lots of companies don’t really know how their competitors are marketing themselves and their products. One thing we all know for sure is that times have changed and, as a result, it’s more critical than ever to have competitive intelligence for the benefit of the company’s future…as well as not having your boss say “What do you think about the new ad for ABC Widget?” and you haven’t a clue. It’s just not a good place to be…I know.

So what can a budget-challenged marketing professional do to track the competition without taxing already limited resources?

Let’s start with a few basics: Know who all your competitors are–not just the obvious ones, but the ones flying under the radar as well. Simply put, competitors can be direct (those offering nearly identical goods or services as you do) or indirect (those offering different types of products that answer the same needs).  Staples and Office Depot are direct competitors; Sam’s Club is an indirect competitor.

From that point on, it’s about keeping your ears and eyes open. Again, while it seems oh so obvious, when was the last time you looked at a trade magazine or business journal or dug around online to see who’s saying what to your customer or prospective customer? What did the competitor’s ad say; the trade show booth look like; how did their packaging show on the shelves; or what did their last promotion look like? And let’s not forget about all their online initiatives.

On that note, here are some things I do to get intelligence on “the other guys”. An easy place to start is with Google Alerts. Plug in the name of the competitor or associated products and let Google send you daily messages whenever related content appears online.

Then there are the websites. Ask yourself when the last time you visited a competitor’s website and what did you see? For example did you notice things like the kind of content and the different formats used; any social media networks they are part of; what media coverage they received and the different topics they issued in their press releases?. What about looking at their content, which will give you an idea of what they’re trying to rank for. And here’s one for you: how many different websites do your competitors have? It’s quite possible that maybe some of your competitors have more than one website. Time to look for them.

You can also check out the social media profiles of your competitors on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. or use a social media search engine such as SocialMention.com to see the kind of content they post and who they follow and who follows them.  It can also reveal what others are saying about your competition, good and bad.  And then there are corporate blogs. Studying the blogs by your competitors, if they have any, can help you know what kind of topics and categories they cover because it will help you ensure that your blog follows a different and better messaging strategy.

For those that are saying “yeah, yeah, yeah, what else?”, well, a backlink analysis of your competitors’ sites will give you a basic idea of where they are getting their links from. For this you can use sites like Open Site Explorer. They show up to 1,000 backlinks for free and even more if you use their paid version. Backlink analysis often brings up sites where your competitors might be advertising and those links give you information on some of these popular sites (they did some research –  gain from their knowledge).

Did you know about a little known tool from Google called Double Click Ad Planner?  It’s for finding out detailed demographic information about your competitors’ customers. As well as giving you reliable figures on how many visitors your competitors’ websites get, you can also find out the age of their customers, income, gender, education level and more. And while we’re on the subject of Google, if Google’s the one ranking your business against your peers, then it makes sense to understand who Google thinks you’re similar to, right?  Here’s food for thought: type in your own URL in the searchbar and see what comes up. You may be surprised.

So, am I trying to intimidate you by showing you just how much competition there is out there today? Nope. But it’s important that you’re aware of it so that as you monitor competitors’ actions, you’re looking at the right sites and in the right direction. Because times have changed and your competitors are no longer just the names you’ve always known.  Your competition is anyone who gets themselves in front of YOUR customer’s line of sight.  Frances Bacon’s quote “Knowledge is King” couldn’t be more right on.

Included in their “Thought Leader” section, American Cemetery magazine features Dan Katz’s ideas about the power of creativity in marketing to create change for funeral businesses.

by Rolf Gutknecht, Agent of Change (c) 2012

I got another customer satisfaction survey from my bank the other day. Another request for me to take my time to tell them how they’re doing. Once again a perfectly framed poll asking closed ended questions so that someone, somewhere can report the ‘score’.

Is customer satisfaction all that they’re striving for? Really? So, if I say I’m satisfied, then the company is OK with that and all is “good to go”? Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t satisfaction come from performance as expected? On a good day, you might exceed my expectations. If you deliver as expected, I’m neutral. Fall short and I’m dissatisfied. Be it a survey like this or leaving a waiter or waitress the customary 15%, satisfaction doesn’t equate with feeling like all went well.

Therefore, asking me if I’m satisfied is the wrong question. If you really want to know how you’re doing ask me if I am happy. Watch my behavior to see if I am happy. Listen to what I say to learn if I share my happiness with others. Because if you make me happy, I’ll be back…and I’ll bring my friends.

So, how do you make your customers happy? Look at all of the touch points that they experience with your organization related to your products and services. Look beyond the functional benefits to the emotional and social benefits that you can deliver. You see, you and all of your competitors must deliver functionality…it’s required. But premium products and services (you make or sell those, right?) that truly endure into the future deliver emotional and social benefit  — let’s call that happiness.

For example, it’s the reason we still have candles. We haven’t needed them to light up a room for a while and in fact, one could almost say that they’re functionally obsolete. But, they can deliver a romantic glow or a scent that can make you feel better and create a certain mood. They make us happy. So we still buy candles and will even pay a premium for fancy ones. A product benefit comparison chart between a candle and a light bulb would turn out badly for the candle. A customer satisfaction survey would likely go the same way — “On a scale of 1-10 is a candle better than, equal to, or worse than a light bulb.” But we still buy them for their emotional and social benefit.

To drive value for customers it’s necessary to look beyond product and service functionality to the emotional and social benefits that your company and its products can provide. There are companies in a variety of industries that make sure their customer experiences go beyond just being functional – in short, intentionally focusing on how customers feel about the experience of dealing with their company and its products, and themselves to elicit personal happiness.

So, what does one do to get beyond the commoditizing nature of functionality? Well, maybe you can:

•    Identify the type of happiness that you provide based on what the prospect or customer is looking for. Maybe it’s being flexible when the customer really needs you to be in order to get your product where and when it needs to be there…even when the ‘rules’ say differently.

•    Design your brand experience to achieve the emotional benefit that your customers want in a way that makes them happy. Look for key times when you’re dealing with customers and capitalize on them to deliver a strong emotional and social experience. A way that makes customers say “I’m really happy with how that all went.” From customer phone inquiries to tradeshows and community events to in-store experiences.

•    Measure your efforts by asking your customers very consistently throughout the interaction process to see if they are happy rather than use surveys that lean towards reporting satisfaction. Look for things that make people happy as well as asking them if they’re happy.

At the end of the day, lasting products and services provide happiness…and we know them for delivering such because they’ve been around for a long time. On the other hand, commodities provide satisfaction. To avoid being seen as a dreaded commodity, focus on designing and delivering customer experiences that provide happiness, enabling your customers to feel better about themselves and their prosperity. Because while we like to think it’s about us and our products, it’s really about the customer and their needs. So as we all know customers only care about you when they see you care about them.