Tag: communication

Word of mouth

FabrizioLeave a comment

If you want somebody to remember your name, what you do, your product, the thing you stand for, there are two ways to go about it.

The first one is about going straight for your target, talking to them in every possible occasion, catching their attention, getting into their schedule as often as possible, making sure you are within their radar. You’ll probably have to shout louder than others competing for the same target, finding an edge, something memorable, a way to make sure you stick.

The second one is about generating waves that spread to your peers, their peers, effectively do things that are valuable to them, telling a story that resonates, with a message that is clear and can be refined by others that will bring it to the hears of your target. You’ll have to commit for the long term, put in the effort, day after day, overcome loads of short term obstacles, and no single heroic act will be there to remind of you, as your practice will.

What’s your strategy?

Protect who you are

FabrizioLeave a comment

Whether we are on the giving or on the receiving part of feedback, we need to make it very clear that there is a distinction between what we do and who we are.

This is liberating. Understanding that what the other person is saying is not a personal critique, as well as approaching the act of providing feedback with the intent of not imposing our worldview on the other, is what makes a relationship stronger and thriving.

So, when we ask for feedback, let’s be specific in what we are seeking. Can you tell me what you think of this thing I wrote? Do you think I should use this or that framework? What would you do to make it better? How do you think I could get better at presenting?

And let it be clear (to us) that what is at stake is not our character, our career, our relationships, our life, our future, our being. Only a minuscule part of that.

When we prepare to give feedback, on the other hand, let’s focus on things that happened and on how we interpreted that or how it made us feel. When that happened, I noticed everyone in the room went silent. This other framework is used more in such cases, because… . I really liked that part of your last e-mail, I find it showed great empathy and consideration. Your presentation featured very interesting information for the company, and with this and that you can make it memorable next time.

If we set a middle ground to have the conversation, without aggressing the other person’s space and building a resistance to our more vulnerable self with awareness and confidence, the magic of candor can truly happen.

Learning from the past

FabrizioLeave a comment

In 1900, Édouard and André had a problem.

About 10 years earlier, they had started producing pneumatic tyres for bicycles in Clermont-Ferrand (France), and after a while they expanded their business with pneumatic tyres for cars. Their pneumatics were special for the time, as they were not glued to the wheel, and therefore could easily be replaced. The problem was that in the whole France there were about 3,000 cars. Not much to have a viable business.

Their idea to overcome this obstacle was somewhat revolutionary. Instead of perfectioning their product (already excellent), or trying to gain market shares from competitors (whose product was inferior), they asked themselves a question that each marketer (and business person, to be fair) should ask themselves: what problem can we solve for our potential customer so that they would be more willing to buy a car (and our tyres)?

In one of the very first examples of content marketing, the Michelin Guide was born. A list of hotels and restaurant to make it easier for people to tour the cities, information about how to change tyres (Michelin tyres, of course), as well as a list of mechanics, car parts ads, maps and other basic information. Nowadays, more than 100 years later, when we hear about the Michelin Guide, we barely associate it with a tyre manufacturer, yet its name is well known (and respected) by everybody who likes to travel and eat good food.

The history of marketing and business is full of such anecdotes – another good one is how Procter&Gamble basically put the “soap” in “soap operas” when it started producing radio dramas in the 30s.

Content marketing is not an invention of the new wave of digital marketing. It is good to remember that the examples from the past who stood the test of time and deeply impacted our culture, have all started from a business need and a consideration that nowadays marketers seem to have forgotten: if you do not know who you are selling to and what they value, it will not stick.

Against denigration and disregard

Fabrizio5 Comments

We attach labels to people and groups of people, partly because we try to make sense of what we do not understand, and partly to reinforce our identity and belonging to a different group.

“People that are born in that period are weak.”
“People that work in that team are lazy.”
“People that come from that geographical area are dishonest.”

Even if we assume that these types of labels have some truth behind them (they usually do not and are more of a reflection of our internal insecurities, yet humor me for the sake of the argument), the best and more effective approach would be to first understand the deeper level of the manifestation that inititated the labelling, and then try to imagine and build an environment in which the deeper reason can either be leveraged or addressed.

So, for example, if we believe that a group of people is particularly weak, on a deeper level this might mean that they are better in touch with their own feelings and emotions. As a reaction, we could try to figure out a way to make sure that their improved understanding of their selves could be employed and put to good use.

If we assert that a certain team or department is lazy, it might be because they do not have the tools necessary to effectively do their job, or because their team lead is not sufficiently motivating. As a reaction, we might want to try to facilitate their tasks and work in any possible way, or look for another manager.

This happens very seldom. The easiest and most common reaction to labelling is either denigration or disregard. Denigration is where every form of extremism is born: we reinforce the labelling by supporting it with every evidence we might find, and we feed it to the public forum every time it is possible. Disregard is instead working around the group and their characteristics, building walls to keep them out, pretending they do not exist.

It takes a great deal of awareness and courage to act differently when we catch ourselves in lazy labelling.

There is no such thing as a free social media platform

Fabrizio1 Comment

We are hitting our heads against a wall.

For years, we have believed in the myth of “free”. Listening to music was free, watching a video was free, posting your piece of content was free. Whether you were an individual or a company, you could get in front of a fairly wide audience with a very small investment of energy and time, and essentially without spending any money. And of course, as we were getting blinded by the allure of “free”, we forgot about a very important fundamental.

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Even when things appear to be free, they are not.

While we have not paid a dime to publish and distribute our content for the past decade or so, we have most likely contributed to the impoverishment of our society and to the extremization of the public discourse.

Furthermore, as marketers we keep banging our heads against the wall every time a platform curbs our potential to reach our audience (current or wanted). We might just understand and accept that those platforms do not exist to allow us to spread our message to whoever we want. And instead we first spend weeks over weeks complaining about how our posts used to get 1000 and now gets 200. Then, we try to game the algorithms, we hack a bit further to try to squeeze more, we ask strangers of dubious reputation to publish or click on links just to try to increase our content’s rank, we use shortcuts to boost metrics that have absolutely no business relevance.

The basics of marketing have been the same for decades, and if we manage to stop our head just for a second, we can see that is what still matters nowadays.

  1. Understand who your audience is.
  2. Ask what they need help with.
  3. Match your product or service to the help needed.

The rest is noise. It distracts us from achieving things that matter and from delivering meaningful change.