The Art of Marketing is all about You

Today I’ll be at The Art of Marketing conference all day – six cool speakers, and 1500 eager marketers hanging on their every word.

If you can't make it, enjoy my column in this week's Financial Post, which covers my interview last week with marketing guru Seth Godin, the keynote speaker at today’s conference. Godin was his usual whirlwind self, pulling together different threads from all over to create a tapestry of new insights into marketing and business – which he sees as essentially the same thing. Your business, your career: it’s all about marketing, and it’s all about building your brand.

Excerpt:

Succeeding at work today isn't about following rules; it's about leading with heart.

Similarly, marketing isn't just what you say about your product any more; it's wrapped up in what you want your business to stand for. (Look at Apple, Godin says, where the company's rebel designer chic persona is the company.)

Both these strategies can easily lead to failure. If your company represents itself as something that it's not (let's say you're a car manufacturer that's found to be less committed to safety than it claimed), social media can chew you up. If you mistake leeway for licence and merely confound your colleagues, you won't last long in the workplace.

But embracing these opportunities is the best way to stand out, and discover where your future awaits.

Read the full story here.

Music Lessons from the Edge

Because of its high profile (and the way it marched, unprepared and eyes tightly closed, ahead of most of us into the digital future), the music business is a fascinating case study for the evolution of business in the Web age. Marketing guru Seth Godin had a fascinating blogpost recently entitled Music Lessons: Things you can learn from the music business as it falls apart.

Here are some of his rules:

The first rule is so important, it’s rule 0:
0. The new thing is never as good as the old thing, at least right now: Soon, the new thing will be better than the old thing will be. Don't expect old models to survive long.

1. Past performance is no guarantee of future success: Every single industry changes and, eventually, fades.

2. Copy protection in a digital age is a pipe dream: You used to sell plastic and vinyl. Now, you can sell interactivity and souvenirs.

3. Interactivity can’t be copied: The winners in the music business are individuals and organizations that create communities, connect people, spread ideas and act as the hub of the wheel.

11. Understand the power of digital: You may believe that your business doesn’t lend itself to digital transactions. Many do. If you’ve got a business that doesn’t thrive on digital, it might not grow as fast as you like... Maybe you need to find a business that does thrive on digital.

13. Whenever possible, sell subscriptions: Few businesses can successfully sell subscriptions (magazines being the best example), but when you can, the whole world changes. HBO, for example, is able to spend its money making shows for its viewers rather than working to find viewers for every show.

Godin concludes that the biggest opportunity for the music business is to combine "permission with subscription."

"The possibilities are endless... the good old days are yet to happen."

Read the original post here.

Meatball Sundae and the triumph of small business

I've long been a fan of Seth Godin’s work, so I love his new book, Meatball Sundae. It’s all about what happens when an old-line company, selling commodity-level products with a low-cost, low-value mentality, tries to adapt to the online marketing world of Web 2.0. The result, says Seth, is like putting whipped cream and a cherry on a bowl of meatballs (hence the title.)

I had a chance to interview Seth last week about his book, and wrote it up for my column in Monday’s Financial Post. The gist: either you get hep to the need for broader, deeper customer relationships, or you're stuck in slow-growth meatball business for the rest of your career. He cited JetBlue (a metaphor I extended to include Calgary’s WestJet) to illustrate the difference between 21st century marketing and “running a bus company that happens to fly in the sky."

Godin has written a manifesto for a permanent new way of doing business. Is he right? It feels true to me. And Godin says he feels the same way. After writing a book a year for the past 10 years, he says this one left him drained, and he has no idea what he’ll write next.

Most interestingly, I suggested that this new industrial revolution he’s talking about seems tailor-made for small business. Godin agrees. In fact, he thinks this is the best time in history to start your own business.

“What wins now,” he says, “is speed, transparency, authenticity and passion. And all these things come from people, not faceless corporations.”

And here’s a thought-provoking Godin quote I didn't have room to put in my story: “If someone had sat down 15 years ago and said, “How can we create an atmosphere that’s conducive to startups?, what they would have come up with is what we have today.”

So go for it. But first read the full story here.

Read more on Seth Godin’s blog. It’ll pump you up.

Delighting your Customers

You've probably heard about Apple’s big marketing stumble last week. When they cut the price of an iPhone by $200, they alienated millions of loyal customer/fans who had already dutifully anted up $599 to be “early adopters.”

In an open letter to all Apple customers, founder and CEO Steve Jobs admitted Apple made a mistake: “We need to do a better job taking care of our early iPhone customers as we aggressively go after new ones with a lower price. Our early customers trusted us, and we must live up to that trust with our actions in moments like these.”

He then announced Apple would give previous iPhone buyers a $100 credit for future purchases at Apple retail and online stores.

Most folks saw that move as smart customer service – and a savvy move for Apple, since it brings customers back to its stores. But could Apple have done even better?

In his blog, marketing guru Seth Godin disagrees with Jobs’ solution. “My guess is that his $100 store credit and personal note helped a great deal, but it also cost about $20 million in profit.” Godin believes Apple could have saved that money by offering those estranged customers something different. A premium that reflected their importance to Apple, yet wouldn't have cost the company and its investors so much cash.
Godin’s suggestions:

* Free exclusive ringtones, commissioned from Bob Dylan and U2, only available to the people who already had an iPhone. (“This is my favorite,” said Godin, “because it announces to your friends--every time the phone rings--that you got in early.”)

* Free pass to get to the head of the line next time a new hot product comes out.

* Ability to buy a specially colored iPod, or an iPod with limited edition music that no one else can buy.

“The key,” writes Godin, “is to not give price protection to early buyers (that's unsustainable as a business model) but to make them feel more exclusive, not less.”

I think Godin is on to something. When you really know what makes your customers buy, as Apple does, you have lots of opportunity to delight and reward them. And money is rarely the most important element in that equation.

How could you take advantage of this insight to recognize and reward your customers – without incurring significant costs?

Seth Godin on understanding sales people

Marketing whiz Seth Godin offers a great blogpost today on “Nine things marketers ought to know about salespeople.” Most of his points apply equally to bosses, so if you as a business owner are having trouble understanding why your sales people do the things they do, this post could change your life.

Seth’s 9 points, condensed:

1. Selling is hard. Harder than you may ever realize. So, if I seem stressed, cut me some slack.

2. Selling is personal. When I make a promise, I have to keep it.

3. I can't tell you when the sale will close. No one knows, especially the prospect.

4. I love selling great stuff, well marketed. Don't ask me to sell lousy stuff.

5. I'm extremely focused on the reward half of the equation. So don't change the rules in the middle.

6. I have no earthly idea what really works. I'll keep experimenting if you will.

7. Your job is to make it so I never need to make a cold call.

8. Once in a while, I actually learn something in the field. Ask!

9. I know you'd like to get rid of me and just take orders on the web. But that's always going to be the low-hanging fruit. The game-changing sales, at least for now, come from real people interacting with real people.

I would have added one more point: 10. I'm a people person. I don't relate well to processes and reports. Tie me down with forms and procedures and you reduce my abilty to make magic. If you don't believe me, ask your bookkeeper to make a sales call.

Seth’s full post is well worth reading, and contains two extra points not summarized here. (I have to give you some reason to click on Seth’s story.)