Nichify Your Name

The arrival was highly anticipated.

Then early one beautiful fall morning, the truck arrived with what we’d been waiting for . . . a brand spanking new front loading washing machine – and a dryer to match.

(When you have an 8 month old that is a serious laundry making machine, a new energy efficient, back-saving, programmable washer and dryer with storage pedestals, is a life changer.)

But there was a problem. The pressure of the valves opening and closing in the washer caused a water hammer in our pipes. This is when the pipes shake and shudder so violently that eventually it sounds like they will break open creating a lake in the basement. Not good.

After consulting with my official plumbing problem adviser (Google), I found that there are devices called water arrestors which can be installed to reduce, if not eliminate the problem.

There were a lot of water arrestors out there, and not being an expert, I had no idea which one to choose. And that brings us to the point of this post.

After performing a few searches I came across a search result from Lowe’s that shows they carry something called a “washing machine arrester.” It was the only search result for water arrestors that mentioned washing machines, and they had it available at the local Lowe’s.

SOLD!

When I found the device at Lowe’s, I immediately noticed something that gave me pause. Nowhere on the packaging did it say “washing machine.” It was definitely the same device that came up in my search results – looked the same, had the same manufacturer and price. It just didn’t say “water machine arrestor” on the package. The packaging called it a “mini-rester.”

That’s when Lowe’s marketing smarts dawned on me. If they had called the device a “mini-rester” I’m not sure I would have bought it. By nichifying the name and calling it a “washing machine arrester” on their website, they positioned the product as THE solution for people like me who have washing machines that make their water pipes dance.

Brilliant!

So that begs the question, can you nichify the name of your product or service? How do you take the same labels that everyone else is using – consultant, web developer, battery, etc. – and nichify it so you stand out from the crowd?

Instead of a consultant, could you be THE small business social media consultant?

Instead of a web developer, could you be THE web developer for upscale local restaurants?

Instead of selling a battery, could you sell THE rechargeable battery for portable electronic devices?

Because when you use a name to nichify yourself to become “THE” something instead of “a” something, you make your prospects decision to use you (or buy from you) a lot easier.

I’ll leave you to ponder all this while I go do some more laundry.

Who Prospered During The Great Depression?

Whether or not we’re headed toward a depression, this seems like a timely question to ask.

So I decided to research it and here’s what I found.

The companies that not only survived, but came out of the Great Depression with flying colors are the ones that kept advertising.

It’s easy to pull way back on the purse strings when times are tough. Most people do. While that may be a wise strategy for a family or individual’s budget, it’s not a wise one when it comes to your company and its marketing budget. But that’s exactly what most companies do during economic downturns.

And the fact that most companies are so quick to cut their advertising and marketing dollars creates an even bigger opportunity for those that don’t.

In good times or bad:  if people can’t find you, if they don’t know you exist, if you don’t remind them you exist, it doesn’t matter how good, affordable, convenient, etc. you are – they can’t buy from you.

Especially in tough economic climates, if you put your company in hibernation mode there’s a good chance it won’t wake up.

One of my all-time favorite quotes is by Warren Buffet:

“Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.”

For investors, that means when people are scared of the stock market and are emotionally selling off their investments while running around yelling “the sky is falling, the sky is falling” sending stock prices into a free fall – it’s exactly the right time to start pouring your money into the market.

It’s not easy. It takes guts to do. But over time, investors who do this are very well rewarded.

And so it is with advertising your business. When times are tough, it’s easy to panic and keep a tight lid on spending. But when everyone starts doing that, it presents an incredible opportunity for the businesses that take the opposite approach and maintain or increase their advertising budgets.

It’s not easy. It takes guts to do. But history shows that companies that do this are very well rewarded.

If you’re interested in digging into this topic a little more, here’s a great write up on Google Answers.

Which Candidate is Talking About You?

It’s fascinating to watch.

As the presidential campaign comes down the homestretch, the candidates and their surrogates are making their pitches to the electorate. To watch the messaging and positioning of the candidates on TV, in print, and on the web from a marketing perspective is just fascinating to me.

As some of you probably know, I came up with the idea of adding an About You page to your website. It’s a page that talks about your prospects, not your company.

The most effective marketing messages are the ones that focus on the prospects and show how your product or service can improve their lives. Adding an About You page to a website forces companies to do that (on at least one page of their site) as opposed to the egotistical, company-focused marketing that seems to be the norm.

So as I was listening to Barack Obama’s acceptance speech the other week, you can imagine how this line got my attention:

“But I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring.  What the nay-sayers don’t understand is that this election has never been about me.  It’s been about you.“

And while John McCain didn’t utter the exact phrase “about you”, he did say this:

“I don’t work for a party. I don’t work for a special interest. I don’t work for myself. I work for you.”

In thinking about the two speeches, I started to wonder which one focused more on the voters (ie. About You) as opposed the candidates themselves. Luckily, there’s a handy tool to help me do just that.

Internet marketing optimization firm FutureNow also understands the importance of focusing on the prospect. To help companies figure out if their web copy focuses more on the company or the prospect, they put a handy little tool on their website called the “We We Calculator.” To use the calculator, simply enter the URL of a webpage and the calculator will look for certain words on that page to determine whether the copy focuses more on customers or the company.

I decided to use this tool to evaluate the text of both John McCain’s and Barack Obama’s acceptance speeches. I copied the text of each speech onto their own page on my website to strip away any advertising, commentary, comments, etc. that could impact the results. Then I entered the URL for each page into the We We Calculator.

Here are the results:

John McCain’s Customer (ie. Voter) Focus Rate: 12.14%
Barack Obama’s Customer (ie. Voter) Focus Rate: 19.29%

MCain’s Self Focus Rate: 87.86%
Obama’s Self Focus Rate: 80.71%

According to the calculator, McCain had 51 instances of voter-focused words and 369 instances of self-focused words in an acceptance speech that had a total word count of 3912.

Obama had 65 instance of voter-focused words and 272 instances of self-focused words in his acceptance speech which totaled 4610.

By focusing on the voters about twice as much as Senator McCain as well as focusing on himself much less, Senator Obama seems to get the About You concept more than Senator McCain (at least as far as acceptance speeches are concerned).

What does all this mean?

First, it’s probably no surprise that in evaluating the speeches of politicians, both spent the vast majority of the time talking about themselves (I’m not saying this is necessarily a bad thing in politics, just not surprising).

Second, I’d make no assumptions about the outcome of this presidential campaign based on the voter-focused vs. self-focused language in just one speech from each candidate.

However, I would make the assumption that if you applied this calculator to the pages of your website and got results similar to either candidate’s speech, your marketing needs some help. If your copy focuses on your customers less than 20% of the time and on yourself over 80% of the time, it’s time to get some new copy!

To see how your copy scores on the We We Calculator, put it to the test here.

And one last thing, please keep any comments focused on marketing – not the virtues of the candidate you support or the lack of virtues of the candidate you don’t!

Jack Palance’s Secret to Marketing Online

Ever see the movie “City Slickers”?

Jack Palance plays a wise, crusty old cowboy named Curly. There’s a scene in the movie where he shares his secret of life with Billy Crystal’s character Mitch- a middle aged city slicker going through a mid-life crisis.

You can watch the scene on You Tube, but the bottom line is that Curly’s secret to life is this:

“One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that everything else don’t mean shit.”

So what does that have to do with marketing online?

In our last blog post in our “Fundamentals of Marketing Online” series we talked about how overwhelming marketing online can be and one way to make it more manageable (by focusing on core marketing strategies that have proven successful offline).

Another way to make marketing online less intimidating is to take Curly’s advice and just focus on one thing.

You’ll probably never be an expert on using Google AdWords, Facebook, MySpace, article marketing, SEO, copywriting, social bookmarking, video marketing, Twitter, FriendFeed, WordPress, etc. to market your business.

But you can become an expert in just one. Forget about the others. I’m not saying they don’t mean shit, but you can hire an expert to help you with them while you stay focused on your one thing.

I know this is tough to do. There are always cool new marketing tools coming along online. There are always emails in your inbox from one guru or another promising to make your filthy stinking rich if you use their methodology.

I’m not saying to totally ignore them. But focus the majority of your time on your one thing (the 80/20 rule is definitely in effect when it comes to marketing online).

So what one thing should you focus on? Well, Curly’s answer is “that’s what you have to figure out.” And he’s right. It all depends on your business and your goals.

Over the years I’ve hitched my wagon to Google AdWords and copywriting. I think that no matter what businesses I’m involved in, the expertise I’ve developed in those two areas will help immensely.

But they might not be right for you.

So my recommendation is to find what is right for you – your “one thing” – stick to it and master it so you can expertly use it to power your online marketing efforts.

The Secret To Marketing Online is Offline

It’s overwhelming.

When it comes to marketing online there’s PPC, SEO, blogs, article marketing, video marketing, wikis, social networking, social bookmarking, and on and on and on.

Throw in the fact that many people starting businesses online have never run or marketed a business before and overwhelming is an understatement.

So where should you begin?

I’ve found there are a few core concepts to keep in mind that have helped me immensely when marketing online. So to start out our “Fundamentals of Marketing Online” series I’d like to share them with you.

The first of these concepts is: The secret to marketing online is offline.

What I mean by this is if you look at the marketing tools, strategies, and techniques that are proving effective online, they all have their roots in firmly established offline marketing tactics. The Internet may let you market in ways that are easier, faster, and cheaper than ever before, but the underlying principles come from offline marketing fundamentals that have been working long before the Internet was even a glimmer in Al Gore’s eye.

Take Google AdWords for example. Instead of getting caught up in all of its intricacies, first focus on the fact that AdWords is simply direct response marketing on steroids. If you’ve get a solid foundation in the direct response marketing strategies that have been working for decades, creating an effective, successful AdWords campaign becomes much easier.

I think this concept is especially important for those who tend to get intimidated or caught up in technology. My advice is forget about the technology. Become a marketing expert first.

Focus on learning the proven, time-honored, battle-tested marketing practices that have worked offline for years.

Determine which of these practices make the most sense for your market, your product/service, and most importantly, your prospects/customers.

Then find the best tools, techniques, software, etc. available to apply them online.

To get a good foundation in the basics of marketing, there are 3 books (all published long before the Internet reached the masses) that cover core marketing and advertising techniques (particularly direct response) that I’d recommend:

“Ogilvy on Advertising” by David Ogilvy
“Scientific Advertising” by Claude Hopkins
“Tested Advertising Methods” by John Caples

Some more recent books I’d recommend are “Duct Tape Marketing” by John Jantsch and pretty much anything by Seth Godin.

Bottom line: Learn the fundamentals and keep them in mind as you market your business online. Then strategically select and adapt the online marketing techniques that make the most sense for marketing your business.

I’ve found this makes things much simpler than getting caught up in the latest and greatest online tools everyone else seems to be using and trying to adapt them to somehow fit your business.

The Fundamentals of Marketing Online

We all take things for granted.

This concept really hit me hard last month after attending an internet marketing seminar. It was a great seminar that covered about a dozen different ways to boost traffic to your website. And while I got a lot out of it, what struck me the most is that I could have taught the seminar.

I’ve been immersed in the field of marketing, and internet marketing in particular, for a long time. I’ve devoted more money and even more time to studying and testing what works and what doesn’t than I’d care to admit. But what happens when you become so engrossed in something is you often take a lot for granted. You forget how things that seem so boring, simple and mundane are REALLY fascinating and useful to others.

So with the wake up call from that seminar in mind, I’m starting a new series on the SWISSMoneyBlog about the fundamentals of marketing online. The series will cover the basic concepts, tools, and strategies for successfully marketing on the Internet – including how to get traffic, what to do with it, how to profit from it, and more.

What you will not find in this series is a lot of hype or promoting of programs that claim you can make $10,000 a day without ever getting out of bed by following some ultra-secret, easy to follow step-by-step formula that’s never been revealed to the public before. If that’s what you’re looking for, I’d suggest going here.

What you will find in this series is a solid foundation that you can use to either create a new online business, take your existing brick-and-mortar business online, or create additional leads/revenue streams for a business you already have online.

If that sounds good to you, stay tuned as we kick off the series next week with posts on the essential concepts you need to understand before you even think about marketing online. I hope you’ll join me!

Copyblogger’s Talking About You

There was a short, yet powerful post by James Chartrand on Copyblogger last Friday titled “I Don’t Care About You.”

James writes about “Egotistical Marketing.” It’s a great term that describes a mistake many marketers make – focusing on themselves instead of others.

Bottom line: If you want people to pay attention to your marketing then tell them about their favorite subject – themselves!

After you read James’ post, check out my take on the concept and how to put it to use by creating an About You page on your website.

8 Business Lessons From My Broken Kenmore Refrigerator

What a joke.

Last Friday, my 3 ½ year old Kenmore refrigerator stopped working. At the time I’m writing this, almost a week later, it’s still not working.

Here’s a recap of this comedy of errors and the lessons you can learn . . .

1. I’m home with my 4 month old and notice the refrigerator makes a loud click, the motor turns on for about 5 seconds, then it clicks again and shuts off. I open it up, and while the contents are still cold, the fridge is not blowing cold air anymore. Realizing time is of the essence, I stuff a 5 week supply of frozen breast milk from the freezer into a cooler and rush it to my wife’s office to store in the freezer there.

Lesson #1: Frozen breast milk is worth more than gold. If you have some stored in your freezer and that supply is put at risk, do whatever it takes to save it. Whatever the solution, it’s a lot less expensive than hiring a psychologist to help your wife recover from the loss. (While I realize this is not a business lesson and most people reading this will never encounter this situation, believe me, if you do, you’ll thank me!).

2. I returned home after successfully delivering the payload before it melted and called Sears to come out to repair the refrigerator. I am pretty much forced to use Sears because the expensive parts of the refrigerator are still under warranty. I’m told they have no service appointments until Monday.

That put us in a real bind. We had medication for the baby and fresh breast milk in the fridge (not to mention food for us). No matter how much I explained the situation and pleaded with them, I was told there was nothing they could do for us.

So faced with having no refrigerator for the weekend, I rush out (cursing Sears along the way) to buy a mini-fridge so we can at least stock the essentials until the repair man comes. I save a few things, but have to toss most of what was in our fridge and freezer.

Lesson #2: If you have a customer in a bind, what can you do to help them? What contingency plans could you put in place to make sure they get the help they need? In this case, could Sears have offered the option of a loaner fridge for the weekend or let me talk with a service technician to see if perhaps there’s an easy or temporary solution to the problem?

One way to turn customers into raving fans that sing your praises from the rooftops is to come up big in their time of need.

3. The technician comes out on Monday and as soon as I describe the problem, he tells me it’s the starter relay – which, of course, is not under warranty.

The good news is that it’s only a $30 part.
The bad news is that labor costs $200 (plus a $10 gas surcharge).
The worst news is that he doesn’t have the part in stock and couldn’t get it and come back until Thursday to make the repair.

The tech is a nice guy and shows me how easy it is to install this myself and tells me where I can order the part online as well as a local store that might have it in stock.

Lesson #3: Be prepared. I explained the problem to the scheduler on Friday and would think it was on the repair ticket. If the repair man knew exactly what the problem was when I described it to him, could he (or someone else in his company) looked at my ticket BEFORE he came out? Then maybe they could have made sure they had the part that would likely fix my problem, saving me and him a wasted service call.

How can you anticipate your customers’ needs and be prepared before you are in front of them and have tell them you can’t give them what they need?

4. I call the local company the tech mentioned, Marcone Appliance Parts Center in St. Louis. It’s a little after 4PM. After being on hold for 54 minutes and hearing over and over again how important my call and customer service is to them, I get disconnected at 5PM when their phones shut off. I vow never to use Marcone – ever!

Lesson #4: Back up your words with action. As a copywriter, I’m acutely aware of the importance of words and the messages they convey. I’m also acutely aware that if you don’t back up your words and messages with action, you lose all credibility. Don’t bullshit your prospects with empty rhetoric or promises, you’ll only piss them off.

5. I order the part online from SearsPartsDirect.com. The site shows the part is in stock and with expedited shipping, I can have it by Wednesday. 24 hours later I check my order status and it now shows the part is backordered. I call SearsPartsDirect.com and they can’t tell me when the part might ship. I tell them I want to cancel the order. They tell me once an order has been placed, they can’t cancel it.

Yes, that’s right. I placed the order on the understanding that it was in stock and would get to me by Wednesday. Now it turns out that not only is that not the case, but they won’t allow me to cancel my order of a backordered part that hasn’t shipped yet! The rep happily lets me know that once I get the part, I can easily return it. I ask if that includes the cost for the expedited shipping I paid for (which cost almost as much as the part itself) and am told the refund would only cover the part itself – not the shipping.

After demanding to speak with a supervisor, I’m transferred a department they actually called “Customer Resolution.” I pitch enough of a fit and am told, as it turns out, they can cancel my order.

Lesson #5: If you tell a customer you can meet their needs, meet them. Deliver the goods as promised in the timeframe you promised it. Bonus points here if you deliver more than expected, faster than they expect it.

Lesson #6: Don’t enact stupid-ass policies that make no sense. If a customer wants to cancel the arrangement before any goods or services are delivered, then make it as easy as possible to do it.

Lesson #7: If you need a department in your company called “Customer Resolution,” that’s a pretty big clue that Customer Service needs a big overhaul.

7. I order the part from an online store (which I found using Google AdWords) and it supposedly will arrive by FedEx Thursday morning. Hopefully, the part number the Sears repairman gave me is the right one and the part works, but at this point I’m making no assumptions. If it doesn’t work, I’m getting rid of our Kenmore refrigerator and buying a new non-Kenmore one from someplace not named Sears.

Lesson #8: Everything you do in your company is marketing. Your customer service, the quality of your product, what customers hear when they are on hold, your billing and cancellation policies, etc.

All these things affect people’s impressions of your company/brand and their decisions to buy from you or not. You can spend millions building a brand and trying to get customers in the door only to have sloppy customer service, shoddy products or service, and dumb policies sabotage it all. This is even more true in the Internet age where pissed off customers can vent their frustrations on message boards, review sites and blogs.

I hope the lessons outlined in this blog are helpful and can make at least some good to come out of this debacle. Oh, one last thing, if you ever need a new refrigerator, I’d recommend staying away from Sears. I know I will.

(Update: Partselect.com and FedEx came through and we now have a working refrigerator!)

Toilet Paper Marketing

Toilet paper is a commodity.

Companies that sell toilet paper spend millions a year on advertising trying to get noticed. Trying to build their brand. Trying to get customers to buy their product instead of the competition’s.

It’s a challenge because there is really nothing new or interesting about toilet paper. Everyone pretty much knows what it does, what it’s for, and how to use it. Sure, they can (claim to) make softer, more absorbent toilet paper than the competition – but sales are highly price sensitive. If the competition figures out how to make a similar quality toilet paper to yours at a lower price, they could wipe away your market share in an instant (sorry, couldn’t resist).

Many entrepreneurs approach their marketing like they are toilet paper. They spend a fortune on marketing and advertising that pumps out the same boring messages as the competition. Swap the logos in their ads with any of their competitors and no one can tell the difference.

As a result they become toilet paper – virtually indistinguishable from the competition, highly price sensitive and constantly having spend huge amounts (which ad agencies are only too happy to help them do) to find customers.

But what if you spent your time and (much less of) your money providing highly valuable and useful content for your prospects by . . .

Writing articles.
Publishing books.
Speaking at conferences.
Conducting seminars.
Becoming the media’s go to source in your industry.
Blogging regularly.

Do this and you provide value your competition can’t match. You tell a more compelling story that your competition can’t tell. You become THE expert. And . . .

THE expert doesn’t have competition.
THE expert doesn’t compete on price.
THE expert has customers seeking her out instead of having to find them.

So, when it comes to your industry – are you the expert or are you the toilet paper?

Thomas Edison’s Key To Creating a Successful Business

I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others…
I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent.”
Thomas Edison

He’s one of the most prolific inventors the world has ever seen.

He gave us the light bulb, phonograph, kinetoscope (motion picture projector), stock ticker, and fluoroscope – just to name a few of his 1000+ inventions.

But the quote above is perhaps the greatest display of Edison’s true genius.

Many entrepreneurs get this backward. We think about what we like, what we’re good at, and what kind of product, service, company we want to invent. It’s only after spending a lot of sweat and equity in developing the concept that we discover the market isn’t there to support it.

Start with the prospect.

How can you make their lives better?
How can you help them achieve their goals?
How can you help them avoid a pain?
How can you serve a market in a way that no one else is serving it?

Want to significantly improve the odds of your success? Start with the prospect and keep them at the forefront of your mind as you develop, refine and market your business idea.

It takes research.
It takes hard work.
It takes thinking about others first (which is contrary to our nature).

But if you want to launch a winning business, take the advice of one of the greatest minds of our time – find out what the world needs, then give it to them!