Doing the right thing versus doing something right

Here’s a set of analogies for you. See if you can figure out the answer.

Effectiveness : _________ :: Function : Form :: ________ : Activity

Any ideas? I’ll give you a clue. The latter should pursue the former.

Effectiveness : Efficiency :: Function : Form :: Purpose : Activity

Effectiveness should come before efficiency, function should preclude form and purpose should justify activity. Too many times, businesses get caught up in the reverse relationship. Employees and organizations as a whole focus on improving their process or doing something better or more efficiently while forgetting to ask: am I even doing the right thing?

• Is the product my company is producing wanted by my target market? Will it be wanted next year?
• This report that I’m investing hours of time into creating…is it answering the right questions? Is it useful to my audience?
• The meeting that we are hosting, using company funds, will it be valuable to the attendees? Can we justify all of the dollars to our stakeholders?
• The internal email communication I’m sending out to my employees and forcing them to read, is it telling my workers something they need to know? Will it help improve their job? Will it ultimately improve my bottom line?
• This product that we’re rushing to market for a first mover advantage…did we test to see who wants it and why they want it? Do they want it from us?
• Will the networking event we’re hosting help us meet our revenue goals for this month?
• Does this drip marketing campaign provide a valuable offer for the audience? Or am I just trying to show activity?
• Will the focus group I plan to host tomorrow ask the right questions to consumers?
• This compensation structure I just developed, will it encourage the right behavior from my sales team?
• Is our technology solving a problem that our end users need fixed?

The CEO of my company is famous for saying “you can be the best darn buggy whip maker in town, but if no one is driving buggies anymore, you’re going to be out of business”. Those that win in today’s business environment are the ones that change with the market. To do that, you’ve got to make sure you’re doing the right thing before you focus on doing something right.

Filed under: Strategy

8 ways to get people talking about your brand

Happy Birthday to Joe (FM!)

Apparently, there’s never a dull moment in the Antwerp Central Station. In 2009, more than 200 Belgians danced to the Sound of Music and in April of 2010, the Belgians ate from the world’s largest birthday cake as Joe FM, one of Belgium’s 12 alternative music stations celebrated its one year birthday with more than 6,000 of its closest friends. Here’s a piece of the Belgian treat:

The remains of the largest birthday cake (after 12 hours…more than 6,400 pieces handed out):

A little dirt never hurt anyone, did it? Does it concern anyone else that the cake is sitting on the floor that the bakers are walking on?! Yummy.

On that fun note, here are eight lessons that can be gleaned from Joe’s birthday celebration.

8 ways to get people talking about your brand

1. Do something unexpected. (It’s not every day that you get to experience a piece of the world’s largest birthday cake.)
2. Be someplace unexpected (in an un-intrusive sort of way).
3. Cast a broad, sticky net. (Joe FM reached a greater variety of people in the train station than they would have through a specialized advertisement and in a more engaging way than a passive billboard.)
4. Give your audience a product experience. (The audience experienced the radio station’s music as it was piped throughout the train station.)
5. Put a face on your brand. (The people handing out the cake and interacting with the audience were Joe FM workers.)
6. Create milestones and invite your audience to celebrate with you.
7. Break some sort of a record.
8. Make it nostalgic. (Who doesn’t enjoy a happy birthday and the delicious cake that comes with it?)

And one to grow on…

• Don’t force the audience to commit in order to become involved with your brand…give a gift instead of requiring the audience to give you one in return. (Too many times, customers have to commit at length with lead generating information to redeem gift cards or prizes). Make it easy for your audience to interact with your brand!

Filed under: Brand, Marketing

Remarkable Marketing … from Seth Godin

I am in Belgium this week to hear Seth Godin speak to a number of marketing, advertising and business enthusiasts. It’s a great opportunity, of which I’m very excited to be a part! In honor of the guest speaker tonight, below are ten of my favorite “Godin”isms:

1. Write what you believe, not what sells :: 12 proven ways to get your post to the top of digg
2. The way to win is to make things that tiny (or large!) groups want to talk about, or care about, or engage in. That’s the story that spreads :: Anatomy of a campaign
3. In a presentation to non-scientists (or to bored scientists), the purpose of a chart or graph is to make one point, vividly. Tell a story and move on. If you can’t be both vivid and truthful, it doesn’t belong in your presentation :: Bar graphs vs. pie charts
4. Are you better at what you do than you were a month or two ago? :: Better?
5. You can contact just about anyone you want. The only rule is you need to contact them personally, with respect, and do it months before you need their help! Contact them about them, not about you. :: Catchers and Throwers
6. The mistake so many marketers make is that they conjoin the urgency of making another sale with the timing to earn the right to make that sale. In other words, you must build trust before you need it. Building trust right when you want to make a sale is just too late. :: Drip drip goes the Twit
7. Creativity loves a problem, but it hates a lousy audience. :: Grave new world
8. We tend to use new tools to do less. We try to save time and money at the same time, and end up depersonalizing and commodifying what we do. […] It’s so so easy to hide behind technology, to use it as a shield, instead of as a clever tool to actually get you closer to the customers you depend on. :: Old marketing with new tools
9. When in doubt, challenge the strategy, not the tactics. […] None of us are doing enough to challenge the assignment. Every day, I spend at least an hour of my time looking at my work and what I’ve chosen to do next and wonder, “is this big enough?” :: Thinking bigger
10. Products that are remarkable get talked about. :: What do you know?

And three extras (from What do you know):

• A product for everyone rarely reaches much of anyone.
• Knowing what to do is very, very different than actually doing it
• You’re not in charge. And your prospects don’t care about you.

Seth is all about telling a story that spreads. Making it believable and being passionate about what it is that you do. That is marketing that is remarkable.

Check out this fun video from the Antwerp Central station, which, ironically, is right across the street from where Seth will be speaking tonight. It’s a fun, quick video and it will make you smile.

Sound of Music – Central Station Antwerp: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EYAUazLI9k

Notice at the beginning of the video how most people were curious, but not involved. They were standing on the sidelines, willing to give up a minute to see the outcome. By the end, most of the sideliners were either clapping their hands, dancing in their spot, or putting down their briefcases to join in … and pulling their friends in, too!

Can you see the similarities to your business? How are you capturing the attention of your audience, changing their attitude from passive passerby to engaged brand champion? How are you pleasantly surprising and spreading your story today?

Filed under: Brand, Marketing, Passion, Relationships