Oh, the wonder of beautifully crafted taglines. Those few strategically selected words that sum up everything your business stands for and what you want your target audience to know about you. They’ve made companies fortunes by telling people what makes them stand out in the sea of sameness. Consider FedEx’s brilliant “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.” Nine simple words that tell FedEx buyers precisely what they’re going to get, while simultaneously informing all of its employees what their mission is. What if FedEx’s slogan was “We ship things!”? Would Nike be as successful if it allowed an executive committee to red-pencil “Just do it” into “When you need great shoes?” How would BMW’s vision change if “The Ultimate Driving Machine” became “Our cars are fun to drive!” My point is that these companies didn’t settle for weak platitudes or vague, generalized statements that could have applied to their competitors. Nope, they decided that they weren’t going to settle. Instead standing out and differentiating themselves was business-critical. Can the same be said for your company and its marketing? Do you have a themeline or slogan that makes you stand out? Is it unique and memorable? Or is it mediocre because somewhere down the line, people settled?
Imagine you owned a small piece of your buyers’ brains. And every time they thought about making a purchase where your product or service could be considered as an option, the brand or company name came to mind. For example if they were thirsty, they thought, “This Buds for you, “ or if they wanted a burger they thought, “Have it your way!” or if they when were tired and looking for a lodging for the night they remembered “We’ll leave the light on for ya!” That’s what the marketing slogans from Budweiser, Burger King and Motel 6 do, they help people remember a product and increase their propensity to buy. And that’s what a good marketing slogan can do for you. Unlike your company tagline or marketing message, your marketing slogan may change regularly or you may have more than one. For example American Express has: “Membership has its privileges.” And “ Don’t leave home without it.”
The taglines that work the hardest are not puns or rhymes, but ones that present many layers of meaning, where one layer can speak to the product while another speaks to value or even a brand a brand belief. It can manifest itself in any number of ways…online or offline. In ads and as a social media hashtag. On promotional products and product packaging. Most everywhere.
So what does a good tagline do? At its best, a good tagline conveys a singular value, loud and clear, on what a brand stands for. Remember, powerful words are powerful things. It also connects across all generations, geographies and markets, and becomes relevant for the consumer in his or her own personal way. And the right tagline doesn’t work for competitors because it’s only unique to your brand/company. Unfortunately, far, far, far too many taglines are generic and meaningless. In this time of technology disruption and increasing competition, clear positioning is valuable. Problems occur when the company and its messaging doesn’t have a focus, or the tagline could apply just as easily to other companies. In the marketplace, taglines are used to quickly communicate company differentiation. That said, taglines aren’t developed for customers alone. They’re also important for internal audiences as they can align an organization around a common cause and vision.
With that in mind, there are plenty of taglines out there that don’t work because they fail to connect. They’re easily overlooked, dismissed as “every day,” they lack originality or even mistaken for another brand. This usually happens when one of these mistakes happens:
Alternatively, good taglines have a number of hard-working qualities to them. They’re:
The process of developing a fresh, original and imaginative tagline is no easy task. From competitive research and brainstorming to paring down the list of options to more brainstorming, the process can take more time than you think …not to mention the back-and-forth given the stakeholders who are involved. And even then, the tagline may not be “all that.” That said, here’s how powerful a tagline can be – after 50+ years! Avis Rent-A-Car built its business with “We Try Harder” (which they finally put out to pasture just a few years ago). How the phrase came to be sounds like something out of Mad Men. The tagline was created in 1962 and actually came about in the response that Bill Bernbach, the co-founder of DDB, received from company management when asking why anyone ever rents a car from them. “We try harder” was the answer. Within a year, Avis turned a profit for the first time in over a decade and the rest is history.
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Rolf Gutknecht is vice president, director of account services for LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Rolf on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com. You can also connect with Rolf on LinkedIn.
Most every time I listen to a radio spot in my car, see a TV spot on cable or fan through the pages of a magazine (trade or consumer), I find myself wincing. Ad after ad tells the same sad story: money spent leading to no results. In fact, I’d venture to say that better than 85% – 90% of the ads lay the same leaden egg. Oh, the humanity!
If you’re questioning whether your advertising is doing what you paid it to do, odds are it’s not. And although there are master classes you might take in advertising creativity, marketing strategy and media planning, it’s very likely the problem falls within four main areas. Checking off each point, you can estimate your ad’s effectiveness even before you place it. I mean it.
Here then are the four fundamental concepts that can make a meaningful difference in how successful your next advertising effort is.
1) Have a something compelling to say. And by that, I mean not just compelling to you and your staff, but to a completely disinterested audience. If you’ve followed my posts for any length of time, you know that I frequently observe that people don’t like advertising, and completely ignore the boring or hard-to-figure-out kind. So whatever you have to say must go the distance to alter their indifference. Don’t just tell your audience you’re “a leader in the industry” or that you’ve been around for three generations. They’ve heard that so many times before from you and your competitors that it means nothing to them. Instead tell them something they don’t know, something that might even surprise them. You can tell when someone’s ad is truly compelling when you think, “Gee, I didn’t know that!” We sometimes call that a “sticky” message, one that has staying power after the reader has turned the page or flipped the channel.
2) Sell, don’t just tell. One of the most egregious mistakes advertisers make is simply laying out all the features of their product or service and expect the audience to figure out why that’s important to them. Often that’s done in the form of five or seven bullet points, such as:
or in Business-to-Business ads (snatched from the pages of a recent trade pub):
Yikes! There’s no emotion in that. There’s no selling. There’s no story or connection. Instead of praying that maybe one or two bullets might hit home with some member of the audience – or worse, trying to be all things to all people – why not focus on one point at a time and spell out why that point really matters. People don’t buy bullets. They don’t buy features. But they do buy benefits and ideas that add value to their lives. Always be thinking, from their point of view, “what’s in it for me?”
3) Be your own brand and not a clone of others. All too often, within any given industry, I see ads in which the logos and contact information are interchangeable, one company’s with another’s. None stand out, all look alike, and thus all the players are perceived as a commodity. Here’s a question for you: If your logo was blocked out of your ad or commercial, would the audience still know it’s yours? Take, for instance, Jack-In-The-Box. Their commercials are radically different from McDonalds’. BMW’s ads are unmistakably theirs and not Mercedes’. It’s a matter of message but also a matter of style, personality and consistency. The more striking and distinctive your ads are, the stronger competitive impact they’ll make, while your competitions’ ads could be just anybody’s. Dare to be Different!
4) Tell the same story across all your platforms. With all the buzz about Social Media, it strikes me as odd that most business Facebook pages and outbound Tweets have little in common with their owners’ main marketing messages. In part that’s because the marketing messages themselves aren’t that well-defined. But it’s also because the marketers don’t appreciate the importance of speaking with the same voice at any touchpoint. Good marketing is a collective enterprise and an erosive processes. For instance, if your main story is about how your company has been around for over 100 years, use your Facebook pages to talk about the early days of your firm, the companies you’ve served, etc. Make sure your phone hold-message tells the same story. Make sure you hold special events or promotions that support the theme. If you don’t keep hammering away at the same selling proposition at every touchpoint, then each effort conflicts with every other.
While hardly a full compendium of marketing knowledge, if you make the effort to assure your advertising and marketing is consistent with these four points, you’ll be far out in front of 85% of your competition. And that’s the goal, to create ads your customers will react to and that your competition will hate.
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Rolf Gutknecht is vice president, director of account services for LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Rolf on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com. You can also connect with Rolf on LinkedIn.
Over the years, whether within an advertising/marketing agency or in the corporate environment, I’ve worked with people who have a distorted view of what marketing can do. Mostly these people think that all it takes is slapping together a few concepts to create an ad coupled with little bit of social media and some PR for good measure and the marketing is complete. The thought being that sales will be pouring in the door and big bonuses are just around the corner. After all, most anyone can do this “marketing stuff,“ right?
Alternatively, when a company is not realizing their business or sales goals, we as marketers hear things like: “We’re just not getting the sales that we should because our marketing just isn’t working.” Or “It’s Marketing’s fault that sales are down!” while, in fact, there are other business issues that are at the root cause. There’s no question a solid marketing program can increase your business, but realistically, it can’t fix everything (although ineffective marketing activities might very well make matters worse). Below are 5 things marketing can’t do for you:
Marketing cannot overcome leads that are not being followed up. I did some consulting at company and upon seeing a couple of boxes marked “Tradeshow forms,” I asked them what that meant. They told me it was customer inquiry cards that they had received during the past 3 months of tradeshows they had attended. These customer inquiries had yet to be entered into the system which meant these prospects hadn’t yet been contacted. Which meant potential sales were not happening. And yet, this company had hired me to help them find ways to generate more sales from …wait for it… new prospects. When opportunities like the aforementioned happen, you’ve got to act on them and quickly. If you were interested or wanting to hear from a company regarding a product or service they offered, especially after having given them your contact info, how soon would you expect to hear from them? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
Marketing can’t make people buy things they either don’t want or can’t afford. It doesn’t matter how great your product or service is, if you’re selling to people who either don’t have the interest or the means to buy it, then your marketing is going to fail no matter how brilliant it may be. Yes, marketing can create messaging that ignores the problems with a product or service but with 24/7 access to information and customer comments on the web, problems or issues get exposed quickly. Bottom line: is your product or service delivering on the promises you’ve made? Have you provided the value that the customer is looking for? Basically it all boils down to this: before you decide you need more marketing, take a few moments and make sure the marketing you’re doing is really the right solution for your business.
Marketing can’t be done without a realistic budget. The fact is, if your company is spending a good deal less than the competition, you’re probably not making any significant gains in market share. Yes, there might be a competitor that’s overspending, but my experience working with companies from the Fortune 100 to small mom-and-pops is that you don’t pose a serious competitive threat unless your marketing budget is in the same ballpark with your competition….it’s just one of those “marketing truths.” Developing and then executing the marketing activities takes skill, experience and money and it doesn’t come cheap from anyone who knows what they’re doing. You get what you pay for.
Marketing can’t fix bad service or a bad customer experience. Again, in your own personal life, how often do you keep doing business with a company who doesn’t really value you as a customer as evidenced by their poor customer service? While marketing activities can bring prospects to the door, it can’t ensure that they’ll have an experience that they’ll want to repeat. Unfortunately, despite all this talk or lip service within organizations about being customer centric and “engaging” with their buyers, far too many companies see customer service as something other than what it is…a marketing opportunity that allows the customer to feel valued and appreciated. At the end of the day, when customers continue to have a lousy experience with your products or services or with your customer service reps or sales people, you and I know that’s a bad, bad place to be. Not only have you lost a customer for good, but they’ll probably go and tell others, which means you have to potential to lose future prospects as well.
Marketing can’t make you successful by tomorrow morning. Just because you start a marketing program doesn’t mean you’re immediately going to see your business explode. Marketing is about getting your name in front of your target market on a regular basis until they finally decide to give you a try. Investment in marketing communication for some brands should therefore be seen for what it is: reinforcing/strengthening favorable brand perceptions and insuring your brand’s strength and status for the future. Just as one or two workouts at the gym won’t immediately make you more muscular or leaner, you know that it’s improving your health for the long-term. Think of marketing in the same way…it takes time. That said, if pressed for new sales or new business clients right now, launching into a new marketing program may not be enough to get you where you want to be and you may want to start looking at other options.
And, we haven’t even addressed other issues such as the company not closing leads or not invoicing or collecting on unpaid accounts or it has too many expenses, etc., all issues that marketing can’t solve. At the end of the day, while it’s easy to immediately blame marketing for lack of business, we need to remind people that marketing is intertwined with many other aspects of the organization aimed at getting and keeping customers. Yes, it’s important to judge and course-correct marketing activities if business is lagging, but we need to look at the whole organizational picture to understand why business is slipping off. Otherwise, Marketing will continue to have the finger pointed at them.
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Rolf Gutknecht is vice president, director of account services for LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Rolf on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com. You can also connect with Rolf on LinkedIn.
I think we can pretty much all agree that most everyone, be it on the job or in our personal lives, is stretched thin on time. And this crunch for time has shortened our attention spans and concentration levels to the point that we’re lucky if we even remember some bits and pieces of phone conversations, face-to-face discussions, emails, etc., let alone those marketing messages that other companies put out in the marketplace in hopes we’ll act on them. Who has time for them?
With that scenario playing itself out in most everyone’s lives, marketers have a hard nut to crack when it comes to creating marketing messaging that sticks in order to counterbalance people’s shrinking attention span. Every marketer faces this reality daily. As most of us have heard, the average attention span does not exceed eight seconds (ten years ago it was 12 seconds). Comparatively, the attention span of the average goldfish is nine seconds. Capturing attention within eight seconds is a formidable challenge. As marketers, we have enough trouble with summarizing a message into a small packaging label, a web banner, a half page magazine ad, an outdoor board, or other media channels where the time or space allows for only something along the lines of a “quick bite.” Remember when the 60-second TV commercial was the norm? Then it went to 30 seconds and now we’re seeing more and more 15’s. And Vine built a platform around 6-second video posts and YouTube incorporated a “skip ad” option on their commercial videos after five seconds. Any more than that, and viewers lose interest and get really ticked off .
Oh, and let’s not forget about how the shrinking attention span has also led to people fidgeting between multiple screens (their TVs, computers, smartphones and tablets) at a rate of up to 21 times per hour, according to a recent study. Guess the average minutes a day that a person spends on their smartphone? 147 minutes. Now compare that to just under 120 minutes per day watching TV. Boy, we are distracted!
Growing evidence blames Internet, TV and computer games for creating shorter attention spans. Bombarded daily with mind-boggling amounts of things to read, watch and respond to, most of us have real difficulty paying attention on one subject for longer than a couple of seconds. How to fight against this rapidly decreasing attention span of an average consumer? How do you market to a group of people who don’t have enough time to listen to everything you have to say? It’s hard, and it’s getting harder to get and keep anyone’s attention.
Well, some marketers are trying to get people’s attention by going where more people seem to be…on social media, the “Land Of A Million Tweets, Comments And Posts” that repopulates itself every few days, or hours…or even minutes. And then there’s special offers, sales, email blasts and just about anything else that has a slight chance of possibly working. In doing so, I’d argue that for many companies, they’re not breaking through the clutter but instead adding to it.
It’s more important than ever to hold the attention of customers and prospects quickly and interactively in ways that weren’t possible or necessary in years past. So here are 5 messaging tips that will go a long way to having your audience stay tuned rather than drift away:
Now, at a time when attention spans are shorter and less focused than ever, you need to be more focused on making sure your marketing messaging doesn’t fall on deaf ears. There is too much noise because too many people want to be noticed without having to say anything worth hearing. The genuine voice sounds different and therefore it can be more easily discerned. The problem is, because of so much noise, people are hardly listening any more – expecting to hear nothing of worth anyway. Make every effort to be the voice that gets heard.
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Rolf Gutknecht is vice president, director of account services for LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Rolf on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com. You can also connect with Rolf on LinkedIn.
As a marketing firm that’s always looking to engage in new business relationships with interesting companies, we continue to have more than our share of new business meetings. These companies run the gamut from small to “you’ve heard of this company before” and while they’re sometimes far removed from one another in terms of sales and recognition, a surprising number of times there’s not that much of a difference in their approach to their marketing initiatives which, as my business partner puts it, “borders on marketing malpractice.”
How am I defining “marketing malpractice?” Well, while it might take form in a few different ways, it’s primarily about a breach of duty that does harm when another course of action, as performed by a reasonable person, should have been taken. In short, it’s about negligence. While malpractice is commonly associated with the medical, financial and legal world, it could also be readily applied to the marketing world as well.
With that in mind, let’s look at 5 ways that companies and marketing leaders could become guilty of marketing malpractice:
Not having a full grasp of the marketplace
Too many companies assume that there is absolutely no need to substantiate their beliefs about the marketplace, about what their prospects want, about why their customers are buying, about what people think of their brand, about most anything having to do with those whom they want to purchase their products or services. Generally the thinking is that no one can know the marketplace as well as the company and the market will accept whatever you offer. Are you pretty darn confident on how your specific industry is changing and what is needed to get out in front of the competition? Understanding the marketplace as a whole will create the opportunities that bring with it the sales, visibility, prominence, trust, etc., that you might be looking for. And you get there by doing some research…the right way.
A lack of focus
The “We have to be here, there and everywhere” thinking is a sure way to squander the limited budget that you have. And who said that you need to be all over social media platforms like LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest? Heck, you’ve got your product literature online, and your Web site has a blog and videos. Not to mention all the offline activities ranging from tradeshow activities to advertising to PR, etc. Why did you believe you need to be in ALL of these media locations in the first place, and, just as importantly, who is making sure that all of these activities work together?
Inconsistency or mixing of marketing messaging
When different aspects of your marketing messages don’t reinforce each other, the inconsistencies alienate prospects and current customers. Inconsistent marketing distorts clear expectations, makes potential customers unsure of the characteristics of your products and creates unhappy customers who don’t get what they expect. These inconsistencies affect businesses by reducing both initial sales to consumers as well as repeat sales from dissatisfied customers. Throwing stuff up against the wall to see what sticks is a clear path to wasting resources and confusing people/organizations that you want as customers.
Being just like the other guy
How many times have you read or seen something from one company that looked just like what one of their competitors has or is currently saying? For an example, go online and look at professional services firms and tell me why one is different from the other. The fact is that there is no relevancy to what you’re saying if you just keep repeating what others have said already. Your company/products/services only has value if you’re different and if you can find 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. Striving for differentiation rather than being a “me-too” allows for the organization to seize on new sales-producing and revenue-generating opportunities. Otherwise, you’re just a lazy copycat…two words that don’t leave the minds of the customers and competitors anytime soon.
Confusing strategy with tactics
Maybe, just maybe, the most common marketing malpractice occurrence is not having one over-arching marketing strategy – and ensuring its implementation through all your tactics. Executing marketing tactics without having a well-developed integrated strategy is a recipe for disaster. It’s easy to start with the “how” but if you haven’t identified the “what,” you may find yourself spending a lot of time executing tactics that don’t take you where you want to go and in so doing, you’ll be wasting time, resources and losing out on sales-producing opportunities. What is needed is one single integrated strategy that looks across all delivery platforms whether online or offline, print, broadcast, or mobile. Your customers don’t have an online self and offline self and neither should you. Think holistically about all your marketing initiatives.
At the end of the day, both the short-term and quite possibly the long-term prospects of the company could be affected as a result of marketing malpractice. Whether done because one doesn’t know better or because of expediency, it happens and the organization will have to live with the results. So, while you won’t be brought into court (unless you did something very egregious), one question that a marketer has to ask oneself and answer honestly, is: “Have I breached my duty as the marketing leader for the organization so much so that it has caused harm to both short and long term sales, visibility, prominence, market share, and trust for the company?” Hopefully, the answer today and in the future will remain a resounding NO.
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Rolf Gutknecht is vice president, director of account services for LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Rolf on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com. You can also connect with Rolf on LinkedIn.
I don’t know too many people who really like pictures of themselves. “Oh, I look too fat, too old, too…whatever!” Personally, I hate hearing my own voice on radio or in recordings. I think I sound goofy and inarticulate. And anyone who’s ever seen themselves on television (not including actors, of course) gets it from all sides. We simply don’t like seeing ourselves as we suspect other people really see us.
Oddly enough, we’re the same way when it comes to our businesses. We’d just as soon not think about what we really “look like” to outsiders. The truth might be just too upsetting. But the truth always wins out. So what is the truth we must all face as professionals? What’s the best mirror we can hold up to see ourselves most clearly?
A couple of years ago, our agency was asked by an industry association to provide consulting services to their members. We found that we could do that most effectively by sending anyone who sought our consultation a 12-point questionnaire about their business. It was surprising how challenging it was for many to answer the most necessary questions about their own business’ strengths and weaknesses. We quickly realized that this was that mirror! This questionnaire, if taken seriously, forces company marketing officers to look inward honestly and be willing not to like the answers.
I herewith offer these same questions to you to ponder with respect to your own enterprise. But to do it properly, you cannot be superficial in your answers. You have to dig as deep as you can. And if you can only come up with the “obvious answer” or draw a complete blank, take that as a sign that there’s work to be done.
Ready? No cheating…
On your first read-through of these questions, I’ll bet you say, “Oh, I can answer all that, no problem!” OK, tough guy, then give it a go. Build up the sweat and answer these 12 questions to the very best of your abilities. However you answer it, whatever holes are left unfilled, whatever questions it brings up as you sit there stumped, you’ll have developed the most important document you need to move your company forward. Because getting to your destination of choice depends fundamentally on knowing where to start and taking your first step.
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Rolf Gutknecht is vice president, director of account services for LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Rolf on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com. You can also connect with Rolf on LinkedIn.
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” – Soren Kierkegaard
The last quarter of 2014 is almost history and as we stand poised to welcome 2015 in just a matter of days, we hope for a future that is successful, rewarding and where your 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 the coming 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. 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 2015 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 2015 through a lens of hopefulness, that things will continue to 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 some of your own competitors — have fared better than most despite these trying times. So what have they done to plot a course for a more optimistic and profitable path for success in 2015?
Depending on marketplace factors coupled with how well you were able to strategically position and market your company, the past year was either seen as a success or another year of same-old, or even a disappointment. The question that begs to be asked here is, how much of last year’s growth or lack thereof was because of something you had no control over, such as good or bad luck, and how much was because of something you specifically chose to do or not do? I’ve found through personal experience this is the time to be totally honest with yourself. As Sigmund Freud said, “Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.”
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:
As marketers, one thing we know for sure is that change will not stop in 2015. The economy will continue to shift on us —hopefully with less drama. But by reflecting back on 2014, taking control of your marketing activities rather than being tossed around by the waves in the marketplace, along with thinking optimistically about what 2015 can hold, 2015 might actually be a year worth celebrating. It will be for us and hopefully will be for you as well.
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Rolf Gutknecht is vice president, director of account services for LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Rolf on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com. You can also connect with Rolf on LinkedIn.
Last week, just after sitting down for lunch with a new business prospect, and right after exchanging business cards, the gentleman looked at my business partner’s card and then mine, and said, “Hey, both of your titles say ’Agent of Change’…tell me more about that.” And we did. We told him about having trademarked “Agent of Change,” how every one of our employees has the same title, how it’s the essence of our business approach, and most importantly by far, how it’s our mission and mindset as marketers. For us it was easy to define what those three words meant because we live and breathe it each day. You might say it’s part of our DNA. But for many marketers, those who want to believe that they are an Agent of Change within their organization, it might not be as easily defined. In fact, if I were to ask you right now, how might you define an Agent of Change, you’d probably want a minute to think of a good definition. (At the end of this post, I’ll give you our view on how our firm defines an “Agent of Change”.)
If you’re looking for a dictionary definition, an Agent of Change is someone who “alters human capability or organizational systems or activities to achieve a higher degree of output or self-actualization.” Beginning with the end in mind, the goal of an Agent of Change is obviously to make changes that stick and is the foundation for future change which achieves results that weren’t previously possible. While this dictionary definition is ok, I think it misses the essence of what it means to be an Agent of Change. It has as much to do with identity and character as it is any definition.
So with that in mind, here are some ways that it feels to be an Agent of Change
Lives in the world of “tomorrow.” Regardless of what is going on today, an Agent of Change has a vision of what could or should be and uses that as the driving force to take action. To a certain extent, an Agent of Change is dissatisfied with what they see around them, in favor of a much better vision of the future. A great place to be!
Fueled by passion, and inspires the same. Change is hard work and it takes a lot of energy. Don’t underestimate this. Without passion, it’s very difficult to gather up enough energy to take on dreaded status quo that seems to otherwise carry the day. “Status quo is Latin for the mess we’re in” said former President Ronald Reagan.
Understands people. You can’t create the change that is needed if you have no real understanding of what people need or seek. It’s not about what you can do or say but rather about what the customer wants to hear. It’s also not about what you think the customer wants. Instead, you need to know what the customer wants and that sometimes requires digging deep to get to the heart of what motivates people. Knowing has saved me from my mistaken “I think” a good number of times.
Has a strong ability to motivate themselves to move forward. There are going to be lots of days where people don’t understand and can’t recognize or grasp what’s being offered up as a solution. The Agent of Change needs to find it within themselves to get up every day and come to work and risk being misunderstood and unappreciated.
However, I think the definition also needs to be based on what an Agent of Change does, in addition to the personal traits required. You see, people are willing to change when the pain of the status quo exceeds the pain of change. Or, when the future looks like it does today or worse. A successful Agent of Change recognizes the opportunity for change, identifies the best approach, and becomes the catalyst that makes the change possible, whether by design, planning, or inspiration. While they can’t do it alone, they’re the force that gets the ball rolling.
Also, an Agent of Change isn’t so much a job title or job description as it is a mentality. It’s just what they do or how they do it. Like breathing. They don’t do it only when permitted or told to do so, but rather all the time. There are very few companies that has someone with the title of Agent of Change because they don’t expect things to change much over time. If you work in an organization where committees are king, you know what I’m talking about. Sloooowww and steady is the mantra while competitors seize on all sorts of opportunities and grab market share …and new customers. The only “change” this type of company knows is the coin kind in a pocket.
OK, I told you earlier that I would share with you how we see our firm as an Agent of Change and what we told our new business prospect at lunch…so here goes:
Being an Agent of Change means upsetting the normal course of things, turning up the heat, altering the future as it now stands. It’s serving as a catalyst for growth. Being an Agent of Change is about looking beyond the immediate marketing tasks to consider the entire business environment and how an audience engages with brands in the new marketplace. From that perspective, problems and solutions start to look very different. Being an Agent of Change is about embracing the new marketplace in order to seize untapped sales/revenue-producing business opportunities, delivering real value and long-term sustainable brand credit. Whether it’s a message delivered through an email inbox or on a national TV campaign, or creating new touchpoints where customers can connect on their own terms, everything we do is designed to communicate a total value proposition and spark a noticeable Change in the relationship between the customer and your products. We do this with a shared sense of urgency in increasing sales, growing traffic count, expanding the customer base, increasing stakeholders, strengthening brand identity and enriching bottom-line revenue.
You can be that Agent of Change within your organization or find yourself an Agent of Change to help because the world is changing…with or without your permission.
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Rolf Gutknecht is vice president, director of account services for LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Rolf on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com. You can also connect with Rolf on LinkedIn.
A few weeks ago I wrote about the Seven Deadly Sins of Marketing and hopefully all of you sinners out there have repented. Given the response, I thought it might be good to talk about the flipside, the Seven Cardinal Virtues of Marketing. To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, “Vices and virtues: Can’t have one without the other!” Anyway, as individuals responsible for the marketing activities of the organization, it’s worth reminding ourselves that we do have a responsibility to “behave” in a way that allows for the marketing function to perform its responsibilities in a manner that helps the company survive and thrive.
Patience
In today’s world of “needed it yesterday,” too many marketers see patience as something that can’t be accepted by the company because it’s “just not how we roll.” Well, as a marketers we need to continue to be reminded that patience is a valuable skill and critically important to the growth of the company. For example, staying the course of what the brand’s strategy is when you know it is the right course, rather than over-reacting to others’ activities. As well, patience guides how long to stick with your marketing message. It may feel like it is old and stale to you but that’s because you’re exposed to it daily while prospects and customers aren’t nearly as familiar with it. That doesn’t mean you should keep repeating the same thing over and over again, especially if a better approach is required. Be patient with yourself and resist the temptation to compare your progress to that of others. Hey, it takes some time to set up a lead generation and follow-up machine that will crank out good results month-after-month, right?
Diligence
Sometimes the best course is to apply a little dose of patience and sometimes one needs to persist and push through the challenge at hand. Be diligent in doing something every day to move your marketing and sales programs forward. You can always do a bit more to optimize the website, create more content, tighten your message or figure out how to better add value to the selling process. Keep learning the new skills necessary to succeed in a changing marketing world. Since the web is such a powerful awareness and lead generation tool, anything you can learn about how it works is helpful. With social media becoming an increasingly more visible component in your marketing efforts, be determined to write that blog post, send some tweets, utilize LinkedIn, etc., even when you don’t feel like it. You never know when your efforts will pay off. In short, it’s keeping the brand’s finger on the pulse of the market, and working to respond properly to it.
Fortitude
News Flash! The marketplace is as fluid as water so the watchwords for the day are “Stay Alert and Stay Brave.” “The Fast and the Furious” isn’t just a name of a movie series, it’s also how the Net moves. It can also describe competitive activities and certainly how your customers think and take action. Keep in close touch with those factors that will either lead you to success or be the things that will keep you up at night. Do your best to stay up to date by doing the necessary customer and competitive research by seeing what is being written and said about you online from Epinions to Yelp and many more review sites. Remember, “not knowing” is just that and more than one company has been blindsided by bad sales results because they imagined they knew what was going on in the marketplace and what customers and prospects thought of them. Sure they did.
Honesty/Justice
Customers know when companies are not being upfront or honest with them by what they see, read or hear in the marketing or advertising. They know when you’re trying to hide behind the small legal type or legal mumbo-jumbo. And guess what? As people who really dislike honesty, they bail…and they let others know about it as well. Conversely, think like your customers: If you had a problem with an order and wanted it resolved, you’d want to be treated fairly—and so would they. Make sure that your marketing material and activities reflect a company who respects and values their customers…because we know that they’re not easy to come by.
Faith/Courage
Believe in yourself and what your company is marketing. Know that marketing does work, regardless of the naysayers throughout the organization from C-Suite to the folks in finance and sales. My business partner is quick to point out that marketing is a self- fulfilling prophecy: If you believe in it, you’ll commit to it, invest in it and give it time to work… and it will. Or, if you don’t really believe in it, you’ll hold back, and guess what? It won’t work, and you’ll be right as well. If we’re honest with ourselves, there are times when we’ve wondered if what we’re doing is really achieving the goals we’ve set forth. Realize that success usually comes only after setbacks. View failure as an unavoidable component of success.
Prudence
Planning and acting can be difficult for a lot of marketers who often fear looking indecisive or making a mistake when the firm’s future—or their job—is at stake. Making decisions that are politically expedient, that travel the path of least resistance or avoid confrontation are dangerous and often unproductive without thinking through the ramifications of the decision. And when that happen, like clockwork, a marketing problem raises its ugly head. To help with that, first listen to what others have to say because the right answer might possibly come from them….really. Second, judge with the information in hand. And then, once you judge the right thing to do, the next thing to do is act. Otherwise, what’s the point?
Chastity/Charity
It’s a virtue combination that in our everyday life we think is important….but is rarely acted upon in business. Yes, as marketers we’re responsible for communicating a meaningful and unique value proposition that the brand alone can own and then making sure that the audience embraces it both emotionally as well as rationally. But shouldn’t we also make sure that the brand contributes something meaningful to the market – or even better, the society? A brand should stand for something more than just the product or service that comes from a company. A reputation for being a good corporate citizen only comes through actions that don’t have an obvious ROI attached to it, such as sponsorship or participation in causes or activities that benefit the community because it’s a right thing to do. Think about how as a marketer this chastity/charity mindset could feed the soul of the organization.
As marketers, we realize that the marketplace brings with it many trappings and temptations that could lead us astray from doing the job that both we and the company expect. Recalibrating our thinking and actions to embrace the virtuous side of ourselves in a way that also benefits the organization will lead us to a better place. Let’s go and do good. Your company and customers deserve it.
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Rolf Gutknecht is vice president, director of account services for LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Rolf on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com. You can also connect with Rolf on LinkedIn.
Not too long ago, I 
watching a series on PBS about the Seven Deadly Sins (Wrath, Pride, Envy, Greed, Sloth, Lust and Gluttony) and things started churning in my mind. So I decided to list my “Seven Deadly Sins of Marketing,” given what I continue to see taking place within marketing and marketing departments across all different industries.
Guessing
In the Dilbert cartoon series, Dilbert says that “marketing is just liquor and guessing.” Funny…but as we know, a bit simplistic. Yet, too many companies assume that there is absolutely no need to substantiate their beliefs about the marketplace, about what their prospects want, about why their customers are buying, about what people think of their brand, about most anything having to do with those whom they want to purchase their products or services. Generally the thinking is that no one can know the marketplace as well as the company and the market will accept whatever you offer. Guess (pun intended) how that turned out for Kodak, Borders Books, TWA, and certainly some companies in your own industry! Ask yourself, when was the last time that your company committed the time and resources to do some marketing research…qualitative, quantitative, ethnographic, etc. And do it right.
Marketing by Committee (Indecisiveness)
I’m not sure why, but when it comes to marketing, everyone seems to have a say. Partners, staff, associates, spouses, and the janitor all want to give their two-cents. How about an accounting committee to help figure out where the credits and debits are posted? Or an office supply committee to pick out the colors of pens you order? Many executives forget that great marketing is not about what they like. Great marketing is about what works.
Committees, by nature, are full of compromises so solutions are usually watered down versions that will wind up doing little or nothing to accomplish your growth goals. Marketing by committee leads to lots of bad ideas and poorly thought out plans. Instead of bold strokes from the marketing brush, you get a sea of beige. And then it doesn’t work. Who would have thunk it! The solution is to decide on objectives and budget, and then write a marketing plan. Once the plan is approved, ONE person gets appointed within the organization to take on the role as “the decider.” Empower him or her to make all the courageous decisions required to position your company to dominate your category.
Inconsistency
When different aspects of your marketing messages don’t reinforce each other, the inconsistencies alienate prospects and current customers. Inconsistent marketing distorts clear expectations, makes potential customers unsure of the characteristics of your products and creates unhappy customers who don’t get what they expect. These inconsistencies affect businesses by reducing both initial sales to consumers as well as repeat sales from dissatisfied customers. Also, be consistent with your marketing plan. Don’t stop running an ad, for instance, just because the first insertion didn’t ring your phone off the hook. Give your campaign time to work, but you also need to know when a change in direction is a good idea. Remember, people are not paying that much attention to you, but when they do, it helps if the message you’re saying now is similar to the message that they heard the last time.
Complacency
It’s out there right now. Lurking in the shadows of your success. It is the silent business killer that strikes without warning and can bring even the biggest and the brightest companies to their knees. What is this hidden terror? Complacency. We all know it better as the dreaded “status-quo.” It generally takes the form of “whatever we did last year.” Except, things change. Your competitors are changing things up. Your customer’s needs are changing. The marketplace is changing. A few things to avoid complacency: Keep looking in your rearview mirror to see what your competitors are doing. Listen to new ideas as the next big idea may not come out of your own mouth. And, strive to always do better even before you are forced to react to a competitor’s challenge.
Lack of Focus
Okay, so after reading articles by “experts” about how you should have a customer engagement program in place (so you can be more “customer-centric”), you’ve put your company on LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest. Heck, you’re even ready to go when the next big social media platform launches. You’ve got your product literature online, and your Web site has a blog and videos. Not to mention all the offline activities ranging from tradeshow activities to advertising to PR, etc. But why did you believe you needed to be in ALL of these social media locations in the first place, and, just as importantly, who is making sure that all of these activities work together?
Narcissism
It’s ridiculous that I have to say this but the memo has not reached the desk of many marketers, so here goes: “It’s not about what your company wants to say but rather about what the customer wants to hear.” (I feel better having said it.) Look, if you want to market based on your personal preferences without regard for what works best with your prospects, that’s your prerogative. But I’d suggest that your company’s marketing not be so self-absorbed. Remember, you don’t buy from you, others buy from you and they don’t care about your business and your troubles nearly as much as you do. Most people are tuned into Radio Station W.I.I.F.M. —“What’s In It For Me!” If your marketing message is all about you, then your customers won’t notice what you’re saying. Please begin to “tune” into your customers, find out what they really want and focus your message on them.
Confusion
Maybe, just maybe, the deadliest marketing sin of all is not having one over-arching marketing strategy – and insuring its implementation through all your tactics. Executing marketing tactics without having a well-developed integrated strategy is like leaving your roadmap tools at home and taking off on the drive without considering if you’ve chosen the right road. You wouldn’t haphazardly set off on an important trip in your car so why let it happen with regard to your company’s marketing activities. It’s easy to start with the “how” but if you haven’t identified the “what,” you may find yourself spending a lot of time executing tactics that don’t take you where you want to go and in so doing, you’ll be wasting time, resources and losing out on sales-producing opportunities. What is needed is one single integrated strategy that looks across all delivery platforms whether online or offline, print, broadcast, or mobile. Your customers don’t have an online self and offline self and neither should you. Think holistically about all your marketing initiatives.
Yes, there are more Deadly Sins that I could have talked about, like trying to be a “do-it-yourselfer,” or not measuring your activities, or saving yourself into bankruptcy, but the above are the Seven Marketing Sins I rank topmost. Now, let us all go out and to the best of our ability, sin no more.
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Rolf Gutknecht is vice president, director of account services for LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Rolf on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com. You can also connect with Rolf on LinkedIn.