Social Media in the Sticks 2.0

By Sarah Warren, MBA

Note: The following article is a revised edition of a previous blog entry that was published in Chamber Connection (October 2010), the monthly newsletter of the Ruston Lincoln Chamber of Commerce.

All of us in the marketing and advertising industry are thinking and talking a lot these days about the applications and value of social media. And in my office we’re talking about social media’s specific application here in our “real world,” the rural South.

Social media is becoming a major force in shaping marketing for just about every service and product there is. Case in point, Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts has a Facebook page with over 2 million fans. And Clorox has over 100,000 fans. Yes, that’s a hundred thousand fans of bleach!

The goal in utilizing social media for marketing purposes is to move past the one-sidedness of traditional advertising and engage in a two-way relationship with customers and prospects. But here in the “sticks”—where in a week’s time you’re liable to run into 80% of your customers between trips to the grocery store, church, and your lunch counter of choice—should you invest time and effort in social media? Doesn’t our close-knitted-ness and diminutive population already promote building and maintaining relationships? The answer is yes, but social media still has its uses.

Take, for example, your typical ribbon cutting. You attend, shake hands and pass out a business card or two. Relationship established. Maybe, if your personalities hit it off or if you immediately require one another’s services, the relationship will develop a little quicker and further, but probably not. The majority of the time the story would end at the card exchange.

Instead, after the card swap why not return to your office and, utilizing social media, send a connection request to your new contact on Linked In and trade “fan” statuses for your respective businesses on Facebook. You may not see this person on a regular basis in the real world, but I guarantee—depending on how often you visit and update your personal and corporate pages—you’ll run across one another in the virtual world often. And it’s those glimpses of status updates and corporate culture tidbits that can help you to form a deeper connection.

Social media is also an incredibly useful tool for listening. You can follow what customers and prospects are saying and the tone of their comments to gain deeper insight into their likes/dislikes and purchasing behavior. Hint: you can also use social media sites to monitor the competition and what their customers are saying.

The critical thing to remember is that social media requires a strategy just like any of the other media you’re using as part of your integrated marketing plan.

Social media cannot replace traditional marketing, nor can it act independently of it. You need go in with a clear understanding about how social media is relevant to your brand and clients. Which of your customers are likely to be on Facebook or Twitter? What are they doing there? What can you add to that experience that is of value? And what do you expect to receive in return?

Also, you can’t just fill your social media channels with noise. You must commit to providing valuable content that clients will want to follow. Let me repeat that. You must commit to providing valuable content, not just repeating your regular promotional messaging or tweeting what’s playing on the radio in your office. People can “unlike” your business just as easily as they can “like” you and will not hesitate to do so if you become annoying.

So here it is. Old school advertising is about telling, and social media is about talking. And we’re good at talking here in the sticks, so don’t be afraid to join the conversation.

Sarah Warren is the co-owner of Emogen Marketing Group, a full service marketing firm in Ruston, LA and can be reached at 318.255.1233 or sarah@emogenmarketing.com.

Should You Advertise?

Many people ask us, “Should I advertise?” and our unequivocal answer is, “Yes.”

Before people undertake the action of purchasing they must have intent to buy and before that they must comprehend and desire what’s being offered and before that they must be aware of the option you offer. But for awareness to be achieved customers must first be exposed, which is where advertising comes in.

All businesses, though, are faced with limitations, primarily of budget and time. So, rather than throw money at the wind, be smart about your advertising activities. Here are a handful of thoughts on how to achieve that:

1 - Before launching into any campaign, clarify what you want to accomplish. Are you looking to increase your brand awareness, maintain your current market share or just simply sell more? Understanding and defining the goal will help you identify the correct message and channel to reach out to customers. It will also serve as the basis for determining how to measure the success of your campaign.

2 - The best campaigns are based on a thorough understanding of the customer and their purchasing behaviors. Know them and then speak to them on their terms about their needs.

3 - The lion’s share of your campaign planning should be focused on your message. Advertising icon David Oglivy said, “What you say in advertising is more important than how you say it.” If your message is too confusing, too complicated, too boring or flat out just doesn’t say anything relevant to your brand, even the most eye-catching creative or best ad placement in the world won’t achieve the results you're looking for.

4 - Since you can’t realistically advertise everywhere, advertise where it counts most. Sure high readership, listenership, viewership, clicks and whatnot matter, but don’t just look at the total counts. Figure out how many of that total count are likely to be your customers and then compare cost based on those figures.

5 - Be consistent with your image. It will help your brand gain momentum and recognition, saving you time and money over the long haul.

~Sarah, Emogen marketer

I was dared I couldn’t work GI Joe into a blog…

In thinking back over my past blog topics, it seems like I don’t do much writing about what people really seem to be on the lookout for… marketing tips and how-to’s. If I had to pinpoint the reason, it probably relates to one of our internal philosophies: “Creativity is our only asset. Our concepts and ideas are our 'marketable product,' so as a general rule we don’t do spec work for clients.”

That would be a little like going to the doctor and agreeing to pay only after the check up and testing is completed. The patient’s point might be that he needs to experience the doctor’s skill and bedside manners before deciding if he wants to become an actual patient of the good doctor. But from the doctor’s perspective, whether or not the patient liked the service, he still received it… all the work has been done, diagnosis determined and treatment provided.

While marketing and advertising might not be totally like health care, it’s still a similar story. Oftentimes we are approached by businesses who want us to design a logo, pitch an ad campaign or develop a sales strategy before having to decide if they want to buy. I might be able to see that working if our revenue was generated like old school agencies that live off of media placement commissions, but we’re different. We charge for the ideas themselves (and as a side note we forgo all media commissions and pass them along as a discounts to clients).

But really this situation applies to any business in the service industry. And it’s perfectly understandable that prospects are hesitant to buy into something practically sight unseen. There could be a lot of risk involved in the form of financial, time or opportunity losses. There are ways, though, to help lessen a prospect’s purchase anxiety.

A chef might advertise food critic reviews and Zagat ratings. A financial professional might share the amount of money he’s been entrusted with or recent performance figures. A salon might display pictures of recent masterpieces. At Emogen, we walk prospects through other client experiences and results, offer a thorough portfolio review and provide ample contacts for client references.

Here are a few things your business might consider doing to reduce any perceived risk of your services:

- Offer a complementary initial consultation
- Provide a free trial period
- Offer a special or reduced rate for a basic service
- Give a warranty or service guarantee
- Offer some sort of compensation in the event of service failure
- Encourage and reward client referrals
- Tout certifications, awards and other recognition
- Communicate and promote your brand

That last one is a pretty big one. Communication helps establish expectations; and the more realistic and defined a prospect or customer’s expectations are, the more likely you will be able to satisfy them.

I don’t think I can really ever say enough about the importance of communication, which can take many forms. For the prospect communication begins with your advertising and promotion, but continues on through the sales process, customer service, employee demeanor, office or store ambiance, etc. Every aspect of your business communicates something about the quality and value of what you’re offering. And it shouldn’t stop once you’ve acquired the customer. In fact, you should always communicate more with current customers than with prospects.

So it’s true that if you have a service business you can’t give out samples with the ease that a product business can. You can’t mail everyone a cute, miniature version of your tax return, hair cut or oil change, but you can craft a few promotional efforts to allow clients a reduced-risk trial of your service. And you can—no, make that should—communicate, communicate, communicate so that prospects and customers alike know what to expect. Because, as one GI Joe would put it, knowing is half the battle.

~Sarah, Emogen marketer

A Word on Strategies

Much to the boss’s chagrin, it has been a solid month since the last Emogen blog post. But who can blame us/me? We’ve had quite the summer at e-town… newer-, bigger- and funner-than-ever projects, new employees and partners, office remodeling and people shuffling, computer crashing complete with lots of prayer and begging for file recovery, the possibility of some pretty interesting things on the horizon… all topped off with the discovery of yet another pregnancy for yours truly.

(inhale... exhale...)

All the usual sayings apply: good things come in threes, success breeds success, when it rains it pours, blah blah blah.

It’s in nutty times like these that our short- and long-term strategies have really been a blessing. Because our course is already semi-mapped out, we can breathe a little easier as the torrential rain hits the windshield.

Without a solid game plan we’d likely veer off course and wonder as the rain cleared how we made it to BFE. Instead, a plan sort of acts like Bear Grylls’s machete, providing a little area to step which has been cleared of some of the unknowns the jungle has to offer.

So, how to begin the task of crafting a strategy for your business? Google it and you’ll find a bazillion examples and plans and tools to help you out… no two exactly alike.

Lots of business planners and consultants will also tell you that you must write out your business plan. I used to be of that camp until my dad (a business professor specializing in entrepreneurship) changed my mind. His opinion is that there’s obvious value in writing out a plan because it forces a business owner to think through every detail, but that lots of people get stuck in the details and don’t stay limber enough to adapt. That and the only people on earth who really care about a business plan’s existence are lenders.

Needless to say, at Emogen we don’t have a written out, hard copy of our plan; but we do have thoroughly discussed, well-chewed short and long term plans outlining where we want to be and how we intend to get there. And as changes, trends or opportunities arise, we add that into the discussion—which, it seems, is never-ending—and re-strategize along the way.

In all honesty, though, there does exist one tangible piece to our plan… a rather large excel spreadsheet of our historical sales and revenue figures complete with quarterly, semi-annual and annual averages that help me keep track of trends. The model also has a 60-month projected cash flow with flags for points at which adding staff or equipment is plausible. And all that rolls up into a year over year dashboard so that we can easily glimpse how our present trending might play out over the next 5 years. My justification for this monstrosity is that it helps us see where we’ve been (numerically speaking) so that we can use that information to shape where we’re going.

One final thought on strategies before we close: when you’re picturing your business’s future, don’t put yourself in a box. There’s a great Harvard Business Review article called Marketing Myopia circa 1960 that I encourage all business owners to read. My favorite tidbit from it involves the railroad industry failing to define itself as being in the business of transportation. Instead, it myopically said “we’re in the business of railroads” and as the broader world of transportation developed and changed, the railroad was left in the dust.

So, today’s recap:
1. A long term plan for your business is a must; but
2. Plan without being freakish about it; still
3. There are bound to be details that really matter and therefore should be tracked; and, finally,
4. Don’t be narrow-minded about what your business can become further on down the road.

~Sarah, Emogen marketer

Order Up

It seems that we’ve kicked around the concept of being an “order taker” a good bit at Emogen these past few weeks as we work to achieve balance between giving customers exactly what they ask for and giving them what they really need… which are sometimes very different things.

It takes me back to a time when some friends and Brian & I splurged and got reservations at Superior’s Steakhouse in Shreveport. I forget the name of my steak now--some fancy cut coated with cracked pepper--but when I asked for it medium well, the waiter politely refused and explained that would effectively ruin the steak. He recommended medium and basically wouldn’t allow me anything beyond that.

In that moment, my waiter was no longer an order taker but rather a culinary consultant (which probably had a lot to do with his being the waiter at a high end steakhouse and not Applebee’s). It was risky, though, for him to potentially offend a first time customer. But would I have enjoyed my steak as much if it was dried out or the crust was burnt? Of course not, and—as I’m sure the waiter knew—I would have probably blamed the restaurant without realizing it was my own poor choice in meat temperature that was to blame.

The point is that instead of accepting my request, the waiter recommended a change that ultimately made my experience at his restaurant much, much better.

At Emogen we often have clients who come to us seeking something basic, like a print ad design. What they’ve requested is a solution—a very specific solution—but what we really need to know is the problem they are trying to solve.

Clients are sometimes a little puzzled when we start asking questions about the health of their business. It may seem that we’re being nosey, but we know that most businesses decide to advertise because business is slow. Instead of jumping on the solution they are providing, we want to understand the root of their problem in order to know how to best fix it.

Is advertising the wrong solution? Maybe not, but in some cases it is. In some instances a total paradigm shift may be called for. Instead of advertising the same old green widgets to the same old green widget buying crowd, maybe it’s time to develop something new to respond to the rising demand for, say, purple widgets.

Being an “order taker” is definitely easier. You don’t have to think through the problem. You don’t have to spend lots of time asking “why?” And, what’s most appealing, if things don’t work out you get to pass the blame onto the customer’s shoulders. In the end they’ll pay you, because they have to; but they may also never return for more.

Being a consultant is certainly harder. You have to take time to correctly identify the problem and then work through all the available solutions, but when you do that (and do it well) you are essentially guaranteed to provide your client with the results they truly want. In the end, you’ll still get paid, but you will also assuredly gain repeat business and great referrals.

~Sarah, Emogen marketer

We Don’t Need No Stinking Branding

Lunch today was at the delicious yet powerfully aromatic Hot Rod Bar-B-Que which, in addition to a racing decor, broadcasts various car races on several TVs in the dining area.

For a moment our mealtime discussion touched on fascination at racing teams’ ability to sell every square inch of their cars, uniforms and equipment to sponsors. Over our loaded baked potatoes we marveled at the idea of someone racing a car with zero sponsorships. Imagine it: a solid black car with naught but a number on the hood. It’d stand out like a redneck on Rodeo Drive.

But this isn’t the first time we’ve daydreamed about anti-branding. When Brian had Bayou Bat Company, he toyed with the idea of developing a product called the “Stealth Bat”… no stain, no encircling ring, no logo on the barrel… nothing but a piece of wood. The concept didn’t come to fruition, but if it had it’d have been awesome.

The closest company we can think of that comes to an anti-brand is Halliburton. Their logo is strictly font and is the only mark ever displayed on their uniforms and equipment. I haven’t ever seen a Halliburton business card, but I suspect it’s just as sleek. Really, the only thing that would make their brand less brand-y would be dropping red for black.

The cool thing about the Halliburton brand is that it says, to me at least, “We aren’t here to sell you anything. We’re here to work.” ... oozes power and confidence to me.

And that’s our dream project: a company or product that is so bad a$$ that it don’t need no stinking branding (to borrow from Mel Brooks).

~Sarah, Emogen marketer

What’s in a Name?

Emogen recently had the great honor of helping a client name her new business venture. While that activity is right up the alley of what we do here at Emogen, it’s more common for a client to come to us for branding consultation after the naming decision has been made.

Naming a business is a very, very intimate thing. Those of you familiar with Emogen may recall that we associate logo design with the birthing process, so naturally we associate the naming process with, well, the baby conception process. Intimate, indeed.

What makes naming so personal is that it is a lifelong decision. A visual identity can be tweaked and altered over the years, if not entirely revamped; but a name is much more permanent. In today’s blog we’d like to share eight tips on coming up with a name capable of going the distance.

1. Develop your elevator pitch. Before tackling a name, make sure you have a good grasp on what your business will offer. Consider developing an elevator pitch—how you would describe your business if you had to say it all in one elevator ride.

2. Consider existing vs. abstract words. Existing words are useful because they can quickly communicate what your business does, but they can also carry baggage… sometimes negative. “The Twilight Club” might sound like a really awesome name for an after hours/BYOB club, but it could potentially alienate those repulsed by the Twilight book/movie mania.

Another option is to use abstract (made up) words, which allow you to mold the words’ meaning. Xerox, for example, was adapted from a word relatively unknown to the public, so the company was at liberty to give it as much meaning and personality as it wanted. A tool for developing the meaning of an abstract word is to clarify it with a tag line, slogan or descriptor. Emogen’s descriptor, for example, is Marketing Group and we use the slogan “we’re in the business of getting your business more business” to help show the breadth of services that can fall under the term “marketing.”

3. Don’t box yourself in. Keep your name flexible enough to accommodate future growth. Naming a diner “First Street Hamburgers” could put a limit on both geographic and product expansion. It might be a little confusing to customers when you open a subsequent location on Second Street or add pasta to your menu. Although you can’t foresee where you’re business will be in 5 to 10 years, you can think about your growth strategy. If you’re philosophically against ever opening a second location or having anything but hamburgers on the menu, then you’re probably ok with the name. On the other hand, if you’d welcome opportunities to expand, then allow yourself a little room to grow.

4. Look at competitions’ names – and then make yours stand out. Does everyone in your industry basically have same name? Take auto body services, for example. I’ll bet just about every auto body shop in your town is named according to the following formula: [enter name]’s Body Shop. Not that the collision repair industry is much on the creative end of the spectrum, but a little differentiation and effort on the part of one body shop could go a long way toward signaling customers that it is different… which makes way for the opportunity to communicate that different = better.

5. Make it easy to say and remember. Your Icelandic heritage may be very important to you, but naming a store in the Deep South "Sigurðardóttir’s Clothiers" would be a mistake. It’s not linguistically or culturally relevant, which makes it both hard to say and even harder to remember.

6. Make it look and sound appealing. Pretend to answer a call saying your proposed business name, “Hello, this is so-and-so with XYZ.” Did it sound ok? Did it feel natural? A name great on paper can prove to be harsh or odd sounding when spoken. Now try writing it every possible way you can think: all caps, all lowercase letters, different fonts, etc. Some words can look funny or downright ugly when written out. Here at Emogen we’ve fought a hard battle with “landowner.” Sure it looks ok, until it’s put in all caps (LANDOWNER) and one person calls out lan-downer… and then it’s all downhill from there.

7. Check in with the government. If you’re in Louisiana, visit the Secretary of State’s website and do a database search within the corporations division. A quick search here will confirm that your proposed name isn’t currently in use. Another place to check is the US Patent and Trademark Office, especially if you have dreams of expanding beyond your city. In addition to verifying name availability, you can also confirm your slogan isn’t already being used elsewhere.

8. Perform a URL search. If you think you might one day want to appear on the world wide web, check now to see if a URL relevant to your proposed name is available. You can easily perform a domain search on a domain registry site, like godaddy.com. Lagniappe tip: if your dream URL is available, go on and purchase it even it you’re not yet ready to develop a site.

Alright, so there are our eight tips for naming a new business. And while this list may not be all inclusive, these steps should get you well on your way down the path to the perfect name for your business endeavor.

~Sarah, Emogen marketer