Tim Andren - At the corner of Innovation and Marketing - Powered by Guideas

Singing in the shower

Every morning I arrive back to my house from my daily exercise I peel off my sweaty clothes and look forward to a refreshing, soothing shower.

I thought this morning wouldn't be any different.

I turned on the water stream, disrobed and stepped into what I thought would be just another ordinary Friday. And then I let out a scream!

Staring me right in the eyes was a gruesome creature ready to tear my naked body to shreds.

Okay, so I exaggerated just a tad. My surprise visit came in the form of a harmless spider hanging from the shower head.

After greeting my new friend with a blush [I usually don't make first impressions in the buff] I went about my business. While mind ran through my daily agenda after a minute or two I found myself humming the tune 'Lullaby' by The Cure.

This came as no surprise to me as The Cure are one of my favorite bands, but then it hit me what had happened. For those of you not familiar with the song here's a sampling of the lyrics...

"On candystripe legs the spiderman comes

Softly through the shadow of the evening sun."

...

"When I realise with fright

That the spiderman is having me for dinner tonight!"

...

"And the spiderman is always hungry..."

Robert Smith sings about a bad dream he had of a half-man/half-spider [not Spiderman] in his room.

What I began to realize is that I made an association much like we make all the time in our daily lives. It's here where the essence of marketing [and thankfully this blog post!] really shows it's power.

I told you I found myself humming the tune. What I didn't do is consciously go through my head and say to myself 'I feel like singing a song, let's pick the spider one'. My mind automatically switched to the first trigger it found associated to the subject of spiders. The amazing brain.

NERD STUFF

From Dr. Gene Van Tassell's article on neural pathway development.

"As a child learns to associate symbols in the environment, certain pathways within the brain are reinforced. These pathways within the brain are developed before birth and are composed of electrochemical messages between neurons. As a child begins to associate images with words, these electrochemical messages between neurons become routine."

CONCLUSION:

As we learn or collect new information our brains form mental grooves [kind of like a record] and in a fraction of a second we access these grooves to make sense of our world. This mental ability is essential for survival. Once you see that an association is effective your mind creates that 'mental groove' and you know what bugs to eat or berries to pick in the wilderness.

Have you had your bug taco today?

Not everybody needs these associations to survive but suburbanites crossing the street do. Picture yourself strolling across a busy intersection and see a sports car speeding towards you. You better have some way of interpreting that information - and quickly!

Now let's get on to what we can do with it to help your marketing. You need to start thinking about how you can trigger these types of associations for your business. The first place to create these triggers is in logos/artwork, taglines/slogans, TV and radio jingles, etc.

Some ideas to consider would be to look at the vehicle that you are using to get your messaging across. Promotional products make up a lot of ground here. There are a ton of powerful options for your business. Get online and see what you can do to tie your business name to a particular approach. The golden key here is to step into your customers shoes and walk their path. What do they care about? What are their pains?

Most customers are looking for at least one or more of the following features in your product or service: Fast, Cheap, Convenient, Friendly, Effective [Quality]. Try picking just one and start associating. Keep it simple. What you want to answer is 'When I think of [association] I think of [your company]'. For example, when I think of web search, I think of Google'.

What associations have you made with your marketing? What areas can you begin to focus on?

Out with old and in with the new?

 

While I don't totally agree with the essence of this articles title there are some trends taking place that show a redistribution of media. I foresee another media mashup in the next decade that will blend and aggregate all the delicious media that we've grown to love. Imagine a piping hot media pizza with all the toppings in an instant!

Don't worry, the long tail will continue to prosper, however this new media mashup source will knock your socks off - as it will most likely combine video/tv/internet and social media leaving some singular genres obsolete. Don't think for a second we're going to continue this avalanche of social networking sites for much longer. Ain't gonna happen baby. And once the web (specifically social media) truly integrates into the smartphone - the ripples will be felt far and wide.

From 'Old Media's Decline - New Media's Ascent' by Adam Ostrow...

- Blogs are now used by 24% of Internet users, up from 13% in 2006

- Social networks are now used by 26% of Internet users, up from 17% in 2006

- Videocasts are now used by 11% of Internet users, up from 6% in 2006

- RSS feeds: growing from 5 to 7 percent

- Podcasts: growing from 5 to 7 percent

- Business news sites: flat at 8 percent

There's still a ton of growth opportunity there for you folks. Get on it.

Where do you think media is headed?

How to get marketing ideas

Where do your best ideas come from? Do you know how to create great ideas?

First, ideas as you probably already know, spring forward from our subconscious mind. We are often rewarded with inspiring moments at the most random times or places. Your mind has a funny way of behaving - your best idea won't reveal itself with while you tap your feet impatiently, chances are it will pop into your mind while you are in the middle of a bowl of soup and listening to Beethoven - often times it's when our mind is in a relaxed state.

Jack Foster penned a great book on the subject titled 'How to Get Ideas'. In it he describes the process by which we experience a lightbulb turning on in our minds. His method is as follows:

1. Define the problem
2. Gather the information
3. Search for the idea
4. Forget about it
5. Put the idea into action

I believe in this method and have learned a ton from Jack's book.

My method is very similar. I usually follow a process of recognizing [defining] the problem, doing research [hunting and gathering for information] and then I let it come to me while I'm relaxing as if I already have the answer. If the subject comes to mind I just repeat one question in my head - that being 'How do I solve this'. This method produces tremendous results every time!

For example

I wanted an idea for a cover design for a book I wanted to write about dogs, here's how I would approach it...

DEFINE THE CHALLENGE: How do I visually communicate that my book is about labradors and their owners.

-Questions to ask myself: What type of book is it? How is different from other books? Who is going to read it? etc.

HUNTING AND GATHERING: Research what images, words or ideas represent dogs or labradors specifically.

-Questions to ask myself: What images, colors and fonts work best?

RELAX AND LET THE IDEA COME - Everyone loves this part.

Let yourself relax, take a break, go for a walk, get outside, hit the gym, go on a trip - the ideas will come to you.

Tim Andren's Ultrapowerful Superidea Method™

1. Define your challenge
2. Hunt down and research everything possible about the subject [Give yourself a time limit!]
3. Relax, know that the idea will come to you [stress never works] and ask yourself how to solve the problem.

What ideas are you working on?

The information filter

Living in the information age is a rush.

Within minutes one can open the information reservoir and have tens of thousands of different podcasts, RSS feeds and the like. Wanna be in the know on what people are doing? Maybe even conduct a mini focus group on something for your business. Get on Twitter yesterday.

The downside? You knew there's gotta be one. Personalizing your own information stream can be great fun, but often many reach a saturation point and feel overwhelmed.

I can almost hear you thinking "Give me what I want but help me manage it." There are many tools to help you do just that.

Enter the aggregators.

It may sound like your little nephew's way of pronouncing 'alligator' - an aggregator collects and complies web content. There are fancier, more complicated descriptions for them, but who needs 'em?

I love my RSS reader, I personally use Netnewswire because I'm a Mac hound who barks at the moon. There are many to choose from. I love how mine syncs with my iPhone for information on the run. I can keep up with the latest Seattle Mariner dealings while in line at Starbucks...not that they'd ever make me wait!

Twitter users have to keep up too. Tweetdeck is loved by many. It helps consolidate tweets and those you follow into easy to manage sections.

There are a ton more out there. Google for your specific media jones, the keyword is 'aggregator'.

Are you using aggregators? If so, for what type of media?

Viddler

In other news, I have finally signed up for Viddler. This is something I've been meaning to do for a long time now.

With all of the excitement from my web conference I got on and am looking to develop video blogs [vlogs] into this site soon. Viddler is the perfect resource to do just that. It offers some great tools such as timeline commenting and Twitter integration.

Trust me, in a few years we're gonna laugh at static websites the way they're developed today. I liken this to mashing buttons on Atari 2600s playing Space Invaders. What appeared to be high-tech at the time now looks pretty basic wouldn't you say?

Video and especially social media video is the future, in fact - it's very much the present. Think about what YouTube and smartphones are doing to our expectation levels.

Web conference client tutoring

So I had my first official client tutoring session through web conference today. It amazingly well. I can only sit back in awe at the golden power of technology to enable the craft of marketing!

Despite a small hiccup in the very beginning [seems as though our feeds weren't syncing for a minute], once we got rolling things went very smoothly.

I guided the client through a full outline of their company from marketing presence through the sales process. I wanted to focus primarily on who they were versus who they thought they were. Believe me folks - there's a big difference!

Obviously the relationship and the content of what we went over will stay confidential, however what I can say is that they were very happy with the session and have even requested more focused work as a result!

I'm so excited and look forward to doing more of these.

Why your marketing isn't working

Your marketing isn't working, but do you know why? The answer is simple, however it needs some explanation.

Your marketing isn't working because most of the common marketing formulas don't work and business is in a different climate today.

Please re-read that last sentence.

It's a common misconception that 'the formulas don't work because we're in a different climate today.' That joining word 'and' is what is fundamentally wrong and one so easily overlooked.

In this post I'll explain the difference, but first - a story!

I got an eye infection while traveling a couple of years ago and had to go to an urgent care clinic. The doctor there gave me some medication and advised me it would take two days to take effect. I took my pills immediately and waited for the results. My eye began to improve slightly but after a week it was still bothering me, so I went to my optometrist. Naturally I told him about my visit to the doctor so he asked me what I was currently using.

When I replied he chuckled.

He advised me that the medicine I had been given by the urgent care doctor was effective back in the sixties and that the infection I had in my eye was much different than the strain the medicine was designed for. He prescribed me a modern medication that took care of the problem lickety-split!

My eye and your business are both very important to our lives.

Whether you work for a company or own your own business, your marketing, like my eye, has to be effective. Your marketing isn't working but what medicine do you have to fix it? Is it the right one? It's also important to understand why your marketing problems arise in the first place so that it doesn't happen again.

First, understand that the marketing climate has changed. For good.

Effective marketing was based primarily on an old model, that being television, radio and/or print. It used to be that if you had a product or service you simply needed to bring about awareness via one of these methods and people would respond. Your business would make money and the cycle continued.

What has changed is that the advent of the computer and business in the Information Age has become hyper-efficient at littering the landscape with demands for your attention. People in western civilization can see up to 3,000 impressions of advertising a day! People are not watching television, listening to the radio or reading the paper like they used to. When was the last time you looked up a nail salon in that 65-pound yellow book?

Did you Google it on your iPhone?

Out with the old...

While the old model is out the door the terrifying fact is that most businesses and agencies [whom you'd assume would be on top of trends] haven't changed!

People used to actively watch television and sit through the commercials. Nowadays they flip the channels or Tivo their favorite shows and skip past the commercials. Some people fall in love with a show and don't watch it until the DVD series comes out. Young viewers especially have tuned out television or have fine-tuned it to their liking. With thousands of channels available, the internet calling and DVR, advertising just doesn't have the same effect that they used to.

Ever wonder why commercials have gotten so weird? Agencies are desperate to stand out.

Information overload.

The human brain has not adapted as quickly to the rapid advances of technology and advertising in general. While we are an intelligent species in terms of how we use our brain in adapting to our technological advances we have not Darwinized our mental capacity to process the automated opt-in email blasts, five-thousand brands of cereal choices or the headache one gets while walking around Wal-Mart. It's simply too much to process.

The Four P's of Marketing

Marketing is traditionally based on 'The Four P's'. Some people use 'The Seven P's' or add their own but the four core components are there in process for most companies. You can see them working in yours.

PRODUCT

The product is defined as the actual goods or services, and how each relates to the prospects needs or desires.

PRICING

Pricing is established as the cost to the consumer for a product, including discounts.

PROMOTION

Promotion is multi-faceted. It's core components are advertising, sales promotion and publicity. Branding and it's sub-components (promoting the product, brand, or company) are also in effect here.

PLACEMENT

Placement simply means distribution. How does the product get to the customer? The customer [target audience] needs to be defined and demographics need to be understood.

Backwards Marketing

While the Four P's of Marketing have some validity to them, the approach is backwards. They are good tools to support an approach but aren't being used for the right purpose. A sledgehammer held upside down.

Here's the rub...

Marketing used to work DESPITE 'The Four P's' approach being incredibly flawed. The reason it is flawed is that it focuses on a company marketing towards to it's prospective audience, but the audience is busy defending itself. It's like fishing shoulder to shoulder in a shallow pond. Imagine the poor fish swimming away from dozens of hooks.

The true essence of marketing should be the opposite.

Now more than ever we need to market to how the prospect thinks, acts and feels. He or she is bombarded with bulk mail and is wading in a swamp of unwanted e-mail. How do you market to that person?

During the Presidential debates both candidates spoke about the idea of fixing the economy with a scalpel or a hatchet. Marketing today absolutely needs a scalpel and one that needs to be in the hands of the prospect not the other way around. The sooner a business understands that - the better.

Who is fixing your problem?

The first doctor at the urgent care clinic was obviously trained to do general medical practice and hadn't kept up on the latest with optometry. Who could blame him! I learned during that instant to always see a specialist - especially for something as important as your eyesight. 

What about your business? Do you see a specialist or go to a general practice? or worse yet do you treat yourself?