The Unsexy Side of Marketing

These days, everyone wants to build an app. Everyone is publishing their own e-book. Everyone is pinning their hearts out on Pinterest. They all want to be first on the latest, greatest marketing bandwagon with the hottest buzz.

And while these are all valid and effective tactics, that’s no reason to abandon the proven standbys. Sometimes the less glamorous road is the most efficient and effective pathway to reach and connect with your particular target audience.

Let’s take a look at a few of these tried-and-true methods and how you can put them to work to help you reach your business growth goals:

Blogging

A company blog is an excellent way to engage your customers on a personal level and to provide some very relevant information to your target audience. Your target audience will be much more likely to find you if you are writing about topics that interest them. Just be sure to follow these pointers:

• Blog about topics that interest your target audience. You could provide how-to articles, inspirational round-ups, updates of your company, a contest or event you are hosting, etc.
• Blog with consistency. Each post can and should be varied, but they should always reflect the values of the company.
• The blog should be personal and authentic. If it achieves both of these, then the general public and (most importantly) customers will trust your company.
• Always link within the content of each post to one other post on your site. But only do this if it fits within the context of the article. Remember, you always have the "Related Articles" section at the end in which you can point readers to more. A link within your content, however, weighs a bit heavier as far as SEO is concerned.
• Do not forget an RSS feed and newsletter sign-up form. Make these easy to find and any forms short with as little information required as possible.

Another way to use blogging is to write for other blogs that are related to your company but that are not competitors. For instance, a landscaping business could submit guest posts to "green" blogs, home and garden blogs, other landscaping blogs that are not affiliated with another landscaping company, and any other blog that has readers within your target audience description. You will just want to make sure that blogs allow you to place a keyword phrase embedded with your link either in the content of the article or in the "About the Author" section. Not only does guest blogging build up your company as an expert in your field, but it also increases your page rank on search engines.

Facebook and Twitter

Facebook and Twitter aren't the new kids on the block they used to be, but fact is, most of your customers probably still use them day in and day out.

Keep posting on these networks regularly, but make sure that updates are written on an individual basis. Avoiding mass updates will give the perception that your company is relatable and values individuals.

Your updates can be your latest blog post, a countdown to a company event, discounts or coupons, a drawing or contest for a drawing. Do not update about how you are feeling today, rants on the latest political news, your opinion of competitors, or anything else that could annoy or distract your customers from their relationship with your company. Before posting an update, ask yourself if this is something that you as a customer would want to see from a company you love.

Online directories

Add yourself to as many applicable online directories as possible. Online directories increase your popularity on search engines. This means that it is more likely for you to be discovered through general search entries.

Google Maps is not generally considered a directory, but it may be the most important place to get your company listed. If you have a “headquarters,” post its location on Google Maps. Mark it as headquarters. Then, if there are satellite sites, include those as well.

Direct mail marketing

Direct mail does not necessarily mean via the postal service. Direct mail marketing can also mean email. These emails should be as personal as possible, so consider using customers' names in the subject and throughout the content of the email.

For postal mailers, include a flyer or use postcards. Both print mail and emails can contain a mixture of new developments in the company, things to be looking forward to, promotions and coupons, and any other sort of relational news. Try to avoid including too many statistical reports or numbers. These turn people off, and they will promptly throw away your letter or delete your email.

Keep direct mailers short and simple. Here are a few points to consider when planning for a direct mail marketing campaign:

• Postcards are still incredibly effective so long as they’re clean, unique, and have memorable graphics, along with the other important pieces of information below.
• Include just a snatch of information, enough to make them curious.
• Tell them what you want them to do with a strong, actionable call to action (i.e. buttons that say Purchase, phrases such as "Visit our website or scan our QR code to find out more").
• Provide irresistible incentives, such as limited time offers for free items with a purchase, a discount, or a chance to win a drawing for a prize.
• Include a URL, Twitter name, QR code, purchase button, or another source for them to find out more information.
• Be sure that you cater to your recipients. Consider age, race, ethnicity, gender, sex, and religious orientation.

Yellow Pages

Both online and off, the yellow pages is a valuable marketing avenue. If your business relies on both local and online customers, purchase ad space in both your local yellow pages as well as for the online yellow pages. This will not only improve your chances of being found when prospects complete an online search but also when they are looking through the local phone book for businesses who offer your services or products. Just be sure that your ad is large enough to be seen next to other marketing giants in your industry. Also, be sure to advertise yourself as unique. What niche services do you offer that your competitors do not? Are you family owned and operated? Do you give individualized attention to each customer? Creating a unique angle on your ad will make you stand out to your target audience.

Remember that while adapting to new ideas and technologies is essential, it doesn’t necessarily render the old methods invalid. Your job is to find the right combination to reach and resonate with your target market so that you can build your own community of fans and followers. No matter how they come into your circle, their loyalty and their advocacy of your brand is a result that will stand the test of time.

How GE and Jeff Goldblum Can Help You Harness Your Light Bulb Marketing Moment

Do you want people to remember your company or your product? One of the ways you can achieve memorability is by using humor. Make someone laugh and you make an impression on them. Make an impression on them, and you are well on your to achieving memorability.

When I speak with companies about the value of using humor in their marketing, the objection I most often hear is:

“Our company / service / product just isn’t funny.”

This is a legitimate comment. After all, some products or services lend themselves much better to humor than others. A website for a company selling inflatable bouncy castles is much easier to make “fun” than an ad for an accounting firm. Still, I believe that many companies are convinced they cannot be funny, yet they have never really tried to do so.

Making light bulbs funny

Would you consider light bulbs “funny”? Probably not, but as a recent ad released by General Electric, and featuring actor Jeff Goldblum, shows, even a product as commonplace as a light bulb can use humor in its marketing.

In the ad, Goldblum plays a fictional “Famous Person” named Terry Quattro who extolls the value that good lighting has had on his career as a way to promote GE’s Link light bulb. The ad itself is hysterical and already going viral. Within days of being released, it was already well over a million views on YouTube. This is humor being used at its finest, but the video also does a wonderful job of promoting the product!

Watch the video and you will find that, between the silliness and humor, the writers have done a great job of explaining the value of these light tbulbs, including a low cost ($14.97) and long life (22 years). By wrapping those important messages along with ridiculous scenes that you can’t help but laugh at, they have created something unique and memorable. If all this ad did was explain the value of the light bulb, it would not stand out in any way, but by using humor, the writers and GE have created a fun spot that also does a great job of selling their product!

Sharing the funny

Besides being memorable, marketing that is genuinely funny also has a great shot at being shared by people who have enjoyed that ad.

After seeing the General Electric video, one of the first things I did was to share it on my social media accounts with my friends and contacts. This is par for the course these days. When someone sees something unique, or interesting, or amazing, or funny, one of their first inclinations is to share it with others. This is powerful because it allows your content to spread faster and reach a wider audience. Unlike online ads that are easily ignored and passed over, a shared piece of content, whether it is a video, an article, or some other kind of content, resonates with an audience in a stronger way. This is because that content is often being shared by someone they know, as opposed to being delivered via a faceless ad network.

If I am looking at my Facebook page and one of my friends shares a video and declares that it is “awesome” or “hysterical”, there is a much greater chance that I will give that content a chance than I will if I see it randomly advertised in the sidebar of some web page.

By using humor in your content, you give yourself a chance at being shared, and by being shared, you give your content the best chance to reach the widest audience.

Focus on the situation, not the product

One of the ways that General Electric was able to make an ad for light bulbs funny is by not actually trying to make the product itself funny. Instead, they created a comical situation and a character that introduced the humor to the ad. This ends up being a much easier road to travel than struggling to make a product like a light bulb comical. By placing that product in a comical environment, they still achieve the end result they want – an ad that makes people laugh and encourages sharing.

The aforementioned objection that “Our company / service / product is not funny” can be neutralized using the same approach that GE did for their Link light bulb. If the products or services your company offer do not naturally lend themselves to humor, think outside of the product’s box and take a cue from how GE solved this challenge.

You are not GE

OK, so one item that must be addressed here is the fact that your company is not General Electric and you likely do not have the resources or marketing budget that they have. GE was able to get writers Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareham, best known for their comedy work on the Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim show, to create this ad. GE was also able to secure the talents of actor Jeff Goldblum for this spot. This company has the ability and money to secure these talents, but if you don’t, will this still work for you? The short answer is yes. While your ad may not have the same instant viral exposure that a Hollywood actor and a team of seasoned comedy writers can bring to the spot, that doesn’t mean you should abandon the idea of humor altogether.

If you work with a marketing or web agency, talk to them about your willingness to try introducing some humor into your marketing. Maybe there is one particular product or service that you can test it with, the same way that GE is using humor for this one product (as opposed to for their entire company). Brainstorm and think outside of your comfort zone a bit to see if you can come up with some ideas that will work for you.

Enhance your lighting

GE’s “Enhance Your Lighting campaign is an excellent example of a company and a product that wouldn’t readily be considered “funny” finding a way to add humor into their marketing. Check out the video and see what you can learn from what General Electric has done here. Connect with your marketing team to see how you may be able to use humor to increase the memorability and shareability of your next campaign idea.