Category: marketing

Want a book?

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I am turning 40 in few weeks, and instead of getting some gifts, this time around I would be happier to actually give something. Books, specifically.

Through my LinkedIn page, I am giving away four copies of Linchpin and three copies of What to do when it’s your turn. Both books are by Seth Godin, and I want to extend the invitation to grab one to those who read my blog as well.

Linchpin is a book about a different approach to work, one that goes beyond the 9-to-5 task orientation, and that could transform you in somebody people will actually be said to lose (professionally speaking).

What to do when it’s your turn, on the other hand, is a collection of thoughts and ideas from Seth’s blog. It is pure inspiration, something to open every once in a while, at a random page, just to make sure you are on the right track.

If you’ve followed this blog, you’ve probably understood by now that Seth Godin is a pretty huge inspiration of mine. Now I’d be delighted to share these books with you. If you live in Finland (Helsinki area, possibly), I’d be happy to meet you to deliver the book, and maybe grab a coffee and have a chat. If not, I’ll post the books to your address, no matter where you live.

Reserve your copy here. No registration form, no emails required, no bait and switch. Just first come, first served.

Top of mind

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If a blurry beverage cup appears by mistake in the most popular TV series ever, clearly out of place, and everybody thinks it belongs to your brand, you have won the lottery.

Better put, you are reaping the benefits of decades of hard work making the association between take-away (hot) drinks and your brand immediate. Top-of-mind.

Every company, every person can have the same.

What do people think about when they think of you? Or, what kind of things make people think of you? How do you position yourself? It is a long and winding road, one that is built on a foundation of awareness and purpose. But boy, it is worth it.

You can easily be a guy from marketing, or you can work your way to being the guy we call every time we have to write incredibly effective copy. You can quickly become part of the team, or you can make the effort to be the one who spots and (most importantly) solves difficult problems before others even notice them. You are certainly part of our community, or you can go out of your way to go collect the trash that someone has left on the path that many kids walk everyday to daycare.

Branding and positioning is great for companies, and even greater for individuals. The great news is that the circle that acknowledges your traits needs not be greater than your family or your closest friends.

Numbers have stories

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If the chances to contract a disease increase 10%, we would all be much more worried and depending on the disease even panic. Yet it would be more accurate to ask how much the disease is common in our population: if originally out of 100 people 1 catched the disease, the 10% increase would sound much less worrying than if 90 did.

If a company boasts a 100% increase in revenue in the past 3 years, we would feel confident in its good shape. Yet it would be better to ask how it got there year after year: if the revenue progression would be something like 100 – 150 – 250 – 200, than we might want to inquire what happened during the last year and our confidence would fade.

These are just a couple of examples of size instinct, the tendency to be impressed by a lonely number out of context.

Even though it requires more effort, we should always attempt to evalute things within their stories, to avoid being pulled back and forth by the latest trending number. This is true also when we try to tell about the latest marketing campaign, or the results of the latest customer satisfaction survey.

Your call is (not) important

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My health provider has launched a mobile app a while back. It is pretty handy, as it gives you access to your health history, the booking system, the possibility to consult with a doctor remotely, and other useful stuff.

Today the app failed on me for some reasons, and the error page prompted me to contact customer service to complete what I was doing.

I had to first visit the website from the mobile browser, as the customer service number was nowhere to be found in the mobile app. I called and, after being informed that the call would be recorded for improving the service, I was put in line. Our operators are busy at the moment, if you want you can book an appointment with our app. I realised in the meantime the call was not free. We are still busy, we will answer the phone calls in the order we have received them. Five minutes later, an operator answered and I got the issue sorted in about a minute and a half.

Who pays the price for your faults?

Often, it is the customer. The one you want to serve, the one that already had to endure a disservice and embrace to get on the phone instead of going about their business, the one that can tell others and spread the word.

If your system is designed to ditch responsibility (and costs) when something goes wrong, how do you expect your people to own their failures? How will you get better at doing what you do?

This is Marketing

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What I wrote yesterday about the commoditization of marketing is deeply inspired by the work of Seth Godin.

This year, I have read his most recent book, This is Marketing, and despite having followed his blog for years now, and being familiar with most of his ideas, I felt it was the missing piece in my approach to marketing. A way to translate things that are already profoundly rooted in my practice into easy and plain words that everybody can understand.

You can’t be seen until you learn to see is the subtitle of the book, and that is a common thread througout the pages. The focus on empathy and on the necessity to deeply understand who you are serving is one of Seth’s mantras. There’s a metaphor he uses this time around, that is not only great at describing this approach, but also in differentiating it from the other side of marketing, the commoditized side.

It doesn’t make any sense to make a key and then run around looking for a lock to open. The only productive solution is to find a lock and then fashion a key.

Seth Godin

Marketing is about building a relationship, this should be nothing new to anyone who has read Kotler and his principles. And despite this being one of the oldest precepts of the field, we keep forgetting it, because other ways are more alluring and promise shorcuts to achieve results.

For Seth, it all starts by understanding what is the change you seek to make. Because every marketer is in the business of “making change happen” (and everyone who wants to make a change is a marketer). Then, understanding that changing everyone, seeking the mass, is not only unrealistic, it also sets us for mediocrity and disappointment. The only real possibility is identifying our “smallest viable audience“, the smallest market we (or our company) can survive on. And do our best work and responsibly bringing it to them.

This is Marketing is about a way to do marketing that considers affiliation more important than dominion.

Modern society, urban society, the society of the internet, the arts, and innovation are all built primarily on affiliation, not dominion. This type of status is not “I’m better.” It’s “I’m connected. I’m family.” And in an economy based on connection, not manufacturing, being a trusted member of the family is priceless.

Seth Godin

Affiliation, though, does not happen when you talk about how perfect your features are, or when you bombard people with flashy and catchy ads. It is a slow and long process, one that requires patience and consistency, and one that cannot be measured. And that’s where most marketers fail nowadays: they use the prime tool for affiliation (content marketing) and pretend to dress it for dominion (us, us, US!).

Eventually, if the marketer is successful, they will have served people that will spread the word (“the best reason someone talks about you is because they’re actually talking about themselves”, about their taste, about what is important to them) and that will speak up if they are missing (permission marketing).

This is Marketing is a beautiful read about mindset and change, one that is not for marketers only. Actually, it is for marketers only, but we all are marketers nowadays.

For a long time, during the days when marketing and advertising were the same thing, marketing was reserved for vice presidents with a budget. And now it’s for you.

Seth Godin