Training Marketer

Forget the chickens and listen to a little marketing advice from a real expert …

When customers and you sales team are telling you to lower your prices, remember what Seth Godin says - there’s “no such thing as price pressure.”

“You need to increase your value. If people don’t want to pay, it’s because you’re not delivering enough value for the money you’re charging.”

More important than price, companies should feel pressure to increase value for the customer. Lowering your prices may also mean lowering perceived value and could turn customers away.

A little marketing wisdom from Savage Chickens.

Wondering if you should follow through with a new business idea? First, check to see if it’s “sticky” enough to sell by taking the Stickiness Aptitude Test.

The Stickiness Aptitude Test, from Electric Pulp, can help you determine how sticky your marketing message is. Answers are scored on a scale from one to 50, from Scotch Tape to Superglue.

Take the test to see if your ideas are “sticky,” or if you’re looking for an interesting way to make this Friday move a little faster. 

The ability to tell a good joke is a skill that few posses and many aspire to have. Some people believe they can tell a funny joke, when in fact, they fail miserably every time they try.

Developing and delivering great marketing works in the same way you would deliver a joke. Unlike a joke, your branding and marketing messages may not be funny, but they must be effective.

Thanks to the authors of the Ubereye Marketing Blog, who were creative enough to make the connection and generous enough to share their tips with the rest of us. Breaking down the steps to telling a good joke can help us deliver an effective marketing message.

Before you start talking, know the joke from memory. Consumers know when a company is not fully connected to the message they’re sending. Know your brand and marketing message before trying to sell it.

Know your audience. Some jokes may be inappropriate in certain settings. Not every consumer out there will like your brand or buy your widget. It’s your job to find the target audience most inclined to listen to your message.

Don’t tell your audience how funny your joke is before telling it, because they’ll start off skeptical. It’s like saying you have the best, most innovative and effective product on the market. Any savvy consumer will have their doubts about your egotistical claims. If what your selling is the best, people should know already by word of mouth.

Jokes should follow a direct, simple and sequential story line. Keep your brand message simple enough for someone to understand in the first few seconds they land on your site. Your marketing message must also tie into the overall message of your brand.

Commit to your joke and follow through to the end. More than knowing it by memory, your company must commit to your brand and marketing message completely.

How effective your joke or marketing message is (or isn’t), will be left up to your audience to decide. Everyone has the ability to tell a good joke or deliver a powerful marketing message if you just remember a few simple tips, test your message and keep trying.

Twitpitch - your company’s story in 140 characters (roughly 20 words) or less.

The term was created earlier this year, when social media pioneer Stowe Boyd, decided to only accept his Web 2.0 Expo appointments via Twitter. Companies were forced to fit their company’s story into a short “Twitpitch.”

In order to make things simple for me, I am hereby posting a schedule of the times that I will make available for meetings with companies at the Web 2.0 Expo, and I am not going to accept email-based proposals to meet, only Twitpitches.

Note also, in a twitterized style of business, I am only allotting 30 or 40 minutes for meetings. Let’s get down to it people. Cut to the chase. If I fall in love with it, I will be the first to ask for a follow up.

Small companies everywhere can learn a lesson from this interesting social media experiment - get to the point. In this age of information overload, less is more. People don’t have the time to sit and wait for your main point to come around, they want you to tell them now, and it better be quick, or they’re outta here.

“When did Marketing become the make-it-pretty department?” asked Sylvia Reynolds, chief marketing officer for Wells Fargo at a recent conference.

Many times marketers get caught up in making marketing “pretty” and lose focus of the main reason for their being - the customer. Their responsibilities include finding, keeping and growing the value of customers.

MarketingProfs recently published an article outlining what it means to be a marketer and how we can all get beyond what they call the “Make it Pretty Syndrome.”

The Profs bring us back to Marketing 101 by explaining what they believe to be the four “critical customer-focused marketing processes.” So, take out a pen and paper, there will be a test.

Instead of focusing on the “pretty,” Marketing must be fully concerned with these four processes:

Creating value
Communicating value
Delivering value
Managing customer relationships

Organizations depend on the Marketing department to do more than just create “pretty” marketing pieces. While it should still look good, marketers should focus on developing strategies that create and deliver the best customer value possible.

Big-name pharmaceutical companies are planning to move truckloads of marketing dollars from traditional methods to online marketing. Special thanks to Mark at HRmarketer for bringing this to our attention.

As a whole, pharmaceutical drug companies spend about $30 billion each year on marketing (yes, that’s a ‘b’). This year, those billions will be spent less on radio and TV and more on Web sites, search engine marketing and direct e-mail marketing.

Drug companies have been marketing for a long time and know how to do it very well. Their move to the Web should be a reassuring sign to all industries, including training providers, that putting money into the Web is crucial to growing your business.

After peer advice, the Internet is where HR professionals go to find HR product and service vendors.

“Those HR professionals make up the majority of training product buyers for their companies,” said TrainingTime e-Commerce Manager Helene Kopel. “Because HR managers rely so heavily on the Web, as marketers we must have an equally strong online presence and target our buyers directly.”

Web 2.0 is not the future, it’s today and it’s where your customers are. Your marketing efforts should follow the same trend - blogs, email marketing, social networking and SEO can all boost your online presence and help get your training product or service in customers’ hands.

You may want to be looking beyond that large stack of resume’s from business school grads and to those with a more creative background. An article in the latest issue of BtoB suggests that marketers begin staffing their departments with theater majors. The suggestion comes after looking at a widespread marketing struggle - finding a way to create entertaining customer experiences.

“Consider this: While it’s socially awkward to stand up and walk out of a boring keynote at an in-person event, people don’t hesitate to close the window on a boring webinar or virtual spaces presenter. It turns out old-fashioned theatrical skills are even more important online.”

People like to be entertained, even while they’re learning about products. The Web has moved past it’s days of strictly being a one-directional media. Online media has become interactive, and people are more likely than ever to participate.

Brainstorm with your teams ways to get customers engaged while they’re on your site. Take some chances with your marketing and don’t be afraid to try out new ideas like blogs, podcasts and live chat features.