Is this normal? How can I deal with chaos?

The one constant in life and business is change.

When it’s your socks that need changing most people can sense, assess and respond with appropriate action. But when you’re marching days into the arctic circle, your main issues is survival, not stench. Frostbite, not the fragrance of your socks.

When normal is abnormal and you have multiple inputs you look to group and rationalise so that you can act accordingly. You create routine and discipline to make things simple.

The day ends, socks from everyone in the family go in the wash (grouped in the washing basket), we put new ones on tomorrow (found in our individual drawers).

In fact, I’m grateful that most of us have accepted the standard daily routine and haven’t chosen to optimise or experiment in sock longevity.

How about when things are more complicated?

How do you deal with multi touch attribution in marketing, while the market is in flux? How do you fund your entry to a new market with confidence, while exiting another?How do you work out if something is normal, when you’re doing it for the first time?

Huh, it’s no wonder there’s mixed satisfaction with first times given the varying research, scenarios, and inputs that go into them.

Heck if THAT first time had a stakeholder brief, a pre-meeting meeting, budget analysis, room allocation and a pre-mortem I’m sure billions would have far better memories of their first time. Such is the irony that those who have worked in large corporate multinationals can attest to: you often have far too much planning involving far too many, for events that should be a walk in the park for two.

So standard events and first times we can handle, but what do you do with chaos, disruption, and disorder?

“Everyone has a plan ‘till they get punched in the mouth.” — Mike Tyson

Dealing with utter chaos

There’s a framework I was introduced to a couple of years back that builds from the Agile cycle of Launching, Analysing, Learning, and Adjusting. The Cynefin Framework, penned by Dave Snowden almost 20 years ago is the perfect aid for today’s VUCA world.

Simple or Complicated?

When confronted by seeming disorder, in most cases we can: sense, categorise and respond. Some points may require analysis but overall we can form best practice and good practice to deal with most scenarios.

Complex?

When things are complex we can: probe, sense what’s happening and respond. This works when there is some sort of flow or pattern occurring that we can see happening. Think of putting patches on a leaking boat to see which stops the water coming in.

When there are one hundred holes in your plan, profits leaking everywhere but it’s all going in one direction you can probe, sense which holes are now leaking less, and respond. The patterns are complex, but you can start to move them into some complicated best practice.

Chaotic?

When there’s no order, rhyme or reason: act.

Things seem uncontrollable, so act through which you control, sense what happens and respond.

Next, hunt for leverage.

Act. Start creating and pulling levers one by one.

Discover the biggest lever and pull harder.

Turn the chaos into order and set the direction you desire. The art is focusing on the right big levers.

“ You’re better off not giving the small things more time than they deserve.” — Marcus Aurelius

From Chaos To Simplicity And Back

The best companies in the world and products, take us from seemed chaos to simplicity.

  • Spotify use machine learning to take us from a bunch of CDs on the wall to a play list that suits us, our mood, and activity.
  • Amazon takes the chaotic world of online shopping creating a simple categorised way to hunt for your Christmas gifts.
  • Apple took a complex digital camera and put it in your phone for in-focus shots from your lock screen. They combined it with a bunch of other things that used to take a backpack to carry, but now fit simply in your hand.

The key for growth being that continual path from chaos to simplicity and ensuring that for your customers: simplicity doesn’t equal boring and repetitive. The most thriving brands and platforms have variety, novelty, and investment. They’re not just simple.

Their simplicity enables complex and chaotic interactions.

You came to Facebook or Instagram for the easy photo uploads and the novelty filters or old friend connections. But you come back because of the variety and unpredictable messages (almost chaos) your connections post. You keep coming back because of the investment you’ve made in data, shared history and connecting with a community.

Anyway, before you jump over to Facebook or Instagram…

Spot the complex, get complicated and dive into chaos!

Oh, and please comment, share or like if you think someone else needs a little chaos in their life.

Creativity – Daniel Flynn from Thank You Water

Almost a year ago I Brought Daniel Flynn’s book Chapter One, the story of Thank You Water to date.

The notion that a small band of university students would ditch their studies and launch a national water brand and go on to sell a range of food, cosmetics and baby care products to Coles and Woolworths – is crazy. For anyone that has been or seen their contacts scarper to get any product into a nation wide FMCG market for years and years, launching a product range in WEEKS, not months or years, is the stuff of legend.

As a Not For Profit giving 100% of their profits to charity Thank You Water are committed to their WHY. Daniel, in a time of doubt received a sign, as he flipped through his bible it opened to a page of giving water to those in need. Since that day he’s doubled down on his WHY.

Together with weekly consulting sessions by his mentor, a billionaire responsible for global creative projects Daniel’s been able to inspire his team to greatness.

Today I heard again Daniel discuss their amazing journey from $1000 seed capital across the three founders to over $5 million dollars of impact to their causes.

Beyond a powerful social impact cause being the backbone of Thank You Water, the second powerhouse to their success has been creativity.

The team’s creativity and their stoic belief that this will work have been the keys to their success.

Here are some of the highlights I took form Daniel’s story around creativity.

Think creatively around funding

The team had $1000 of seed capital and the initial RFP requests had the market suggesting an initial run of their product could cost between $200k and $400k.

Good, they thought.

They went to EVERY supplier until one bucked the norm and agreed to supply their goods in advance.

Think creatively around path to market

Most products start out in farmers markets, growing slowly, bit by bit.  They decided that the best way to do things, was to do the opposite. Go large, hit the mid sized retailers first. Sadly, without patents or protection of their ideas, two declined the offer to work with them and promptly created their own charity water brands.

Daniel’s thought was – “Good, is this such a bad thing?” They got creative for their biggest targets Coles and Woolworths. Being agile and learning from the last attempts they went big publicly with their intent.

The massive news coverage ensured that Coles or Woolworths couldn’t run with their own brands and ultimately led to both brands taking on their food range as well as their water.

They had a full product range hit the shelves in record times (weeks) and their products hit spots one and two across Australia.

Get creative with pricing

Thank You water was building through the network of contacts the founders were building. They knew that this would be the engine for them to expand, not just through sales deals with these lead retailers.

Daniel always jokes that bottled water is a silly product that people pay silly money for. With that idea in mind and after some deep reflection Daniel wrote a book called Chapter One – priced using a Pay what you want model.

They managed to convince the Airports in New Zealand and Auckland to stock their book on a month by month basis through the power of their social media networks and the PR they promised would ensue. It did. The book sold out in the first weeks in many locations. It was the top of the business category and to date has had prices ranging from 15 cents to $5000 a copy.

The book has raised $1.7 million dollars and counting, selling in Australia and NZ airports in a year and has funded the launch of their baby care products and explorations into New Zealand. In the airport bookshops it was second only to Harry Potter launch week and the book store directors gave them the annual innovation award for their product launch.

Get creative with leadership

One of Daniel’s final points was to get your ideas out there. Too often we hide our ideas until we feel they’re worth sharing. He suggested, or maybe this is my interpretation, that we underestimate the value of the efforts our team members, colleagues and connections can make in nurturing our ideas and bringing them to fruition.

“Bring it to the market, to the community and get it heard.” Sharing your idea will create LEVERAGE – the more people that know your journey and the ideas you have, the more they can bind to your WHY and generate momentum.

He’s certainly got me thinking around creativity and challenging what we consider to be unmovable paths, truths or conventions…

 

I highly recommend you order his book Chapter One, it challenges conventions from the first page. Literally,  it opens vertically.

 

 

Meet your audience where they are at!

These days even the most face to face, person to person sales deals can be assisted through social media, a website or maybe a cunning piece of content marketing. The battle for the sale can be won or lost before it is even fought.

Marketing online and building out an ongoing content marketing strategy is all about meeting your audience where they are at. We build out a set of answers to the problems our clients and their company are facing. But we must serve and reserve this at the right moments, feeding it to our clients as they discover more about our brand and gain confidence that we have the solution they are after.

Understanding the problems you clients have and where they are at in their understanding of both, powers the growth of your content strategy. Hitting the main problems and then developing answers to all their problems is a great way to develop an online reputation as a trusted consultant.

For those new to content marketing, MOZ.com have developed an online archive that easily places them as one of the best, if not THE most trusted consultants in the SEO space. You’ll see they have answered almost every question there is regarding SEO, and they have content for novices and experts alike. The experts keep following their blog and “Whiteboard Fridays” where topical updates are shared and in-depth reports discussed on Video, with an accompanying whiteboard diagram. They are truly

They are true ‘thought leaders’ and seen as trusted consultants.

MOZ even discuss the use of AdWords and other paid advertising online to support your SEO and content marketing efforts. Something that all companies should consider, to support the discovery of their content marketing and to get it in front of new and existing audiences. Layer over this Remarketing to get your audience to return and move further through your sales cycle and you have a  relatively robust online marketing channel that brings your audience to where you are at. Hopefully, by the time your client is ready to discuss or make a purchase they have significant confidence in your product or service through the work you have shown online.

Qualify leads at various stages through the sales cycle can ensure that the content experience meets them where they are at.

Knowing this, the last paragraphs above are useless unless you get the basics of your SEO and content marketing right. Much like talking at an advanced level about the specifics of your product and technical elements to someone who is just discovering it. For most B2B salespeople, qualifying leads is an art and intuition they develop.

Customer feedback is essential here in discovering exactly how your content is resonating.his is not just your website or corporate channels but the way your sales team define themselves as thought leaders too. How do they “show their work”? What evidence is there of thought leadership online? How easy is it to see that they know their stuff and should be your trusted advisor?

This is not just your website or corporate channels but the way your sales team define themselves as thought leaders too. How do they “show their work”? What evidence is there of thought leadership online? How easy is it to see that they know their stuff and should be your trusted advisor?

As an owner, employee, CEO, CMO, maketer or consultant how hard is it to find proof that you’re a thought leader online?

 

Have a look through my Content Marketing archive for further thoughts on this and Thought Leadership. Hopefully, it prompts you, or gives you some ideas as to how to ‘show your work’.

Monitoring your brand online

Track the open web with Google Alerts

One way to ensure you are aware of mentions of you or your brand is to set up a Google Alert.

This tool has been around for some time, but many are still yet to adopt it, or leverage it correctly.

Visit Google alerts and you can use Google to monitor for news about your brand or industry. To ensure the results are relevant enter your search term  (the brand name or industry terms you’d like to see information for) and click show options.

You can select how often you whish to receive the alerts, “as-it-happens” or  a weekly digest. I find the as-it-happens setting ideal for responding to mentions in the news and gives me a chance to respond with immediacy, thanking the author for the mention.

From there you can choose “only the best results” and limit the country results to your country of interest. This is helpful for neighborhoods that take their name from the United Kingdom or other locations in the old world. There are a number of areas called Canterbury around the world, for example.

Build your brand and interact with your industry

One novel ways to use Google Alerts is for mentions of key themes that you wish to create content around, or be considered a thought leader for.

I have filters set up to monitor for specific exact terms that I use to inform me of movements in the industry . You could do the same, for example to monitor the green construction industry, with a search like: “SIPS” or “passive house” or “Blower door” or “airtight construction” .

Limit the results to your country and you will very quickly find those that are outspoken online in the industry and potentially the local online influencers. Cross referencing their social media profiles with a tool like Klout and you can have a basic understanding of their influence online, or at least you will know if many people find the content they share relevant.

You can then effectively surround yourself with online experts, build your knowledge and inform yourself to create interesting content that we know resonates with the industry.

A video introduction to Google Alerts

A few other searches you could try are:

  • competitor’s brand mentions – keep an eye on their activities
  • legislative terms for your industry – be the first to comment on a law change
  • misspelt brand terms – this is handy if you have a brand that’s hard to spell
  • negative industry terms – just to keep an eye on potential acquisition opportunities
  • unhappy customer terms – you can then use social selling techniques to introduce your brand
  • some fun terms to receive jokes or fun videos clips on a Friday.

Monitoring blog mentions and Twitter

Google may not catch all mentions of your brand and obviously doesn’t index closed social network posts or dark social media (Facebook Messenger, Snapchat and Wechat for example).

Socialmention.com is a great free tool that provides a pretty accurate record of blog and Twitter mentions. They have a daily email alert service that you can subscribe to,or an RSS  feed that you can use to monitor your mentions.

Socialmention also provides some breakdown of popular hashtags associated with the posts and a register of the top profiles that have mentioned the term by frequency.

Again you could leverage this for industry insights and share relevant content with your audience.

Hopefully these tools can improve your interactions with customers and industry peers. I’d love to hear of any other tools people have used successfully.

Using Live Video and Stories

Two strong trends have emerged in the social media space recently.  Live video streaming, that allows users to react and comment while watching a live video and Stories, that allow users to create a collection of videos and images which disappear after 24 hours.

Live Video and Stories can be great tools for activation and real-time storytelling or news-jacking.

Both are unique in their functionality, audience and potential uses. Once we’ve explored the mechanics involved let’s see how you  can best use these mediums to reach connections and enhance your brand.

Understanding Live Streaming

With Facebook live being made available to every user in April, the world’s largest social network joined Twitter’s Periscope and gave users the ability to live stream from their phones.

Compared to the separate app and clunky functionality of Twitter, streaming your activities live on Facebook is a relatively seamless process. If you combine the ease of adoption with the much larger user base, and connections – Facebook live becomes a compelling tool to communicate with your friends and followers.

Facebook Prioritising Video And Live Streaming

On top of the larger user base, Facebook’s algorithm (prioritisation) for displaying content to other users, favours live video over and above all other content. They even have a separate priority push notification that you will receive if a friend or brand you follow goes live.

What And Why Would I Live Stream? 

Live stream by nature suits to reaching your audience immediately. Here are a few ways to leverage the medium.

Local event – Streaming the bustling activity of a local fare or fundraising activity could be a great way to get more folks down and participating.  Turn the camera to the scenery around you and let them soak in the action. Of course remembering to value their time, when the action’s over.

Thought leadership – As a business owner you could leverage the channel to highlight your expertise. When legislation changes or something significant happens in the market, live streaming could be a great way to bring your followers up to speed.

Being of service to your customers or followers should always be your first thought when sharing – even on live video. Think would I find this interesting or useful?

Another way to portray thought leadership and be of service to your client could simply be to bring a friend/colleague/expert into the conversation. For example if there was a current forest fire risk in your neighbourhood – bring on a fireman to advise clients on protecting their property.

Team Updates –  As a business owner, an unconventional way to keep your team up to date might be live streaming to a closed Facebook group, you could give insights on the go and your team could catch up later if they missed you live.

Ask me anything or behind the scenes – Two final uses for live streaming could be answering questions from followers or providing a peek into your craft. I would use these sparingly and only when something unique or extraordinary is happening in your career.Remember this is Facebook not ‘bring a colleague to work day’.

A great example is Carlos Burle Brazilian pro surfer, who takes us behind the scenes at Waimea.

For more tips check out Facebook’s own ideas.

Try out personal live streaming

From your home screen there is a simple live button that allows you to:

  1. set up an enticing title, select your audience (Public, friends or a custom group you’ve created.  If you launch the live stream from within a closed group it will also protect those privacy setting as well.)
  2. before clicking go live, select a spot where wind and background noise are at a minimum
  3. clicking the blue go live button commences a three second countdown that you can use to frame yourself or your subjects correctly and to start smiling.

Stream from your Facebook Business Page

By downloading the Facebook Pages Manager app it is also possible to stream you can access the functionality by selecting:

  1. the page you wish to manage
  2. post
  3. choose a title and select which geography and demographics to target
  4. and then clicking go live, which again initiates a three second countdown.

As with all videos once uploaded they feature in your timeline and can be found by others. Remember to remove any videos that are only of relevance for a short time.

 

Instagram Stories

Originating in Snapchat, the ephemeral or short lived stories collections run in contradiction to the rest of the web and dissapear after 24 hours. Historically as marketers and salespeople our web and social media content was created to be of service to our clients, the more content we create, the more they answers a client could find and build affinity with our brand. Now, with Snapchat and Instagram stories, brands can create content in the moment, in a more playful, throw away form.

With almost double the user base or Snapchat, at 400 million (source) Instagram recently added their version of the functionality to its platform.  Instagram has a more mature user base when compared to Snapchat. So if you’re looking long term to build a relationship with millennials then try Snapchat. For a more active group of higher net worth customers – try using Instagram Stories.

Creating your first Story item

From the home screen of your app the add to story icon is top left.

  1. Tapping  the circle icon for an instant snaps a picture onto which you can draw or write (should your picture not speak the right 1000 words). Your drawing or words can then be moved around the screen and positioned.
  2. Holding the circle icon with record video for as long as you hold the icon, release the icon and the upload arrow is ready to add the recorded video to your story.

 How to leverage Stories? 

Stories could allow you to give insights into what it would be like for a client to work with you. Take the story beyond you just doing your job but the extra mile you go to ensure excellence. Be of service to your clients with a handy tip.

You could also use it to alert your followers of other longer format content – a new blog post or longer video, maybe even a live streaming event on Facebook.

@garyvee Owner and instigator of Winelibrary.tv and the social media agency Vaynermedia uses his Stories to alert followers of his latest motivational videos – linking to his DailyVee updates in his bio.

Showcase your customers and celebrate their wins and if there’s something topical in the new relevant to your client’s give them a quick update.

I’m sure there’s a whole lot more useful techniques for brands on Instagram Stories but for a few more ideas check out this article from buffer, with a list of inspirational users to follow.
My top pick for instant work stories jealousy –  @chrisburkard who shows behind the scenes footage of his landscape photography.

The Modern Marketing Manager – A Forerunner

The tasks, skills and abilities required of the modern digital marketing manager, online manager or webmaster are broad. T shaped skills sets are squared off and it is the same for any marketer – on or offline. The influence of technology everywhere means speaking tech and having EQ is the equation for success.

We are required not only to have a technical understanding, but also the skills to wrangle: tech upgrades, shiny new social networks, integrations, content, user experiences and the teams or relationships involved in creating them.

That said, the most powerful approach/skill/technique that a Website Marketing Manager can take is that of being a forerunner for: his leaders, his team and his customers.

They’re the forerunner and Product Owner for their tools – the website, social media and online channels

As the forerunner for an organisation’s online presence the Website Marketing Manager champions best practice. By ensuring the overall consistency of look and feel, that image selection and copy reflects the tone of voice and brand guidelines of the organisation the manager creates harmony. An experience for the user that is consistent throughout the website, across social media platforms and through the various mediums of copy, image, video and interactive.

They understand that a post with an image is more credible, they understand heuristics like scarcity, anchoring and abundance, but most of all they craft a better online experience.

A forerunner respects rules and regulations, but also appreciates that a new audience or network will respond better to content designed for them. Ancient forerunners learnt the languages, dialects, customs and body language that appeased their new audiences, carving a path for their leader.  They master the technology and tool available but also know how to hammer in a nail with a variety of tools and quickly repurpose.

The forerunner not only tailors but they develop and implement an overall content strategy into which they meld the requirements of various stakeholders. All whilst addressing the needs of their buyer personas (the target audiences of their organisation).

They’re the forerunner for customers online

First and foremost the forerunner is customer centric.

The forerunner rolls up their sleeves for the customer ensuring they find resolution for their pain points with products and services, or information and content, should their needs be met elsewhere. They ensure the experience is as painless as possible.

They understand the various customer journeys that buyer personas take, they optimise sales funnels on the site to maximise conversion rates and they do so to ultimately please the customer.

They’re the forerunner for their team

A forerunner likes to roll up their sleeves. In posting content, status updates and A/B testing the forerunner keeps tabs on the user experience for internal customers too. Those that have to deal with cumbersome workflows, ageing tools or inefficient processes. The manager spots things like:

  • folksonomy editing
  • the pairing, deleting or formatting of tags
  • category management
  • approval bottlenecks
  • duplication
  • batching synergies
  • and workflow inefficiencies.

They keep a backlog of process and system improvement to implement that will streamline publication processes and minimise risk.

The forerunner creates a scaffold for his team to work autonomously towards well communicated joint goals.

They’re the forerunner for their leaders and peers

Forerunners are ahead explaining complex scenarios in a dialect the audience can understand and they manage stakeholders needs. Be that senior management, HR with careers branding, or legal with compliance. They communicate efficiently with each.

Like a good auctioneer the website forerunner has his eye across the digital room remembering all parties, their bids and their interests. With an eye on all facets of technical and content needs, prioritised backlogs are built of:

  • technical improvements
  • content features
  • content types, their audience, trends and seasonality

The forerunner has contacts in all camps and bridges sales, marketing and IT to meld the an optimum website within technical and budgetary restraints.

They’re the forerunner for the future

Through constant research – the forerunner has a backlog of potential new ideas for the site, social media and all digital touchpoints. The forerunner is a connector not only of people but also ideas through loose ties. Leveraging industry but also global and hyper local trends as they fit with the goals of the company, the forerunner proactively shares ideas to guide their leader.

As the champion of his website the forerunner isn’t afraid to challenges roadblocks and those deviating from what is currently considered best practice. He has the brand standards, site standards, usability and overall site design at the forefront of any decision.

They’re Agile

The forerunner has become an expert at iterative decisions. Taking big decisions and testing them with MVPs. Trialing on a low risk asset or A/B testing to integrate new features or content.

Constantly improving. Continuous beta.

 

This post is prompted by a recent Tim Ferriss podcast on the canvas strategy and a quote: “The person who clears the path ultimately controls its direction, just as the canvas shapes the painting.” – Ryan Holiday.

Who’s your target market?

When defining who our product or service is for – there are many tools and mechanisms at our disposal. A buyer persona or picture of the median or average customer you hope to reach is often one of the first steps.

Creating a ‘buyer persona’ can involve data mining, client interviews and many internal refinement sessions.

Adding psychographic segmentation can provide valuable profiling and meat to your persona. It can give you leads to their lifestyle, their habits and how they will react to your messages and brand.

Leverage your social media analytics for demographic targeting and Sociographics

Through a quick review of your Facebook fans you can establish the most dominant basic demographics for your brand. For example your median customer may be male between the age of 18 and 25 and living in London.

Examining your Facebook page analytics you can quickly confirm this through the Audience Insights area. You need a reasonable sample size to gain accuracy. Yet even a fan base of 1000 likes on Facebook can prove useful. Providing they are genuine fans and you have not been “like gating”  or buying fans.

With Audience Insights, you’ll be able to see demographic information about your target audience. Things like:

  • Demographic trends about age and gender, relationship status, and job roles.
  • Lifestyle and interest information about your target audience.
  • Purchase information about your target audience. Including which categories they’re most likely to buy in and location data that may help you identify where to run special promotions or host events.

As you can see, this could not only validate our median man is 18 to 25 and from London, but could possibly refine to neighbourhoods, typical purchase categories and what their lifestyle is like.

Examine how your target demographic may behave through psychographics

We can take this data a step further with psychographic segmentation to get a feel for how they may act or react to our messaging, engagement and marketing.

You may be aware of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs

maslow

Advertising company Young and Rubicam took this pyramid and extrapolated it. Their research created seven psychographic profiles using Cross Cultural Consumer Characterisation (‘4Cs’ for short). They then mapped the US population to these profiles. You can find out your Psychograpic tendencies by completing their survey.

Psychographics can help us with an understanding of our buyer persona’s:

  • activity, interest, opinion (AIOs)
  • attitudes
  • values
  • and behaviors.

Here are the seven definitions. Young and Rubicam also provided rough percentage figures for the people that below to each profile in the USA. (These numbers also translate roughly to any marketplace.)

Belongers – 40% of the population:

If we were to stereotype Belongers they’re people that live in the average town in the midwest of the USA. They love community, loves being with family and friends. They have an innate need to belong to a group, be that a church, sports group or fan club. These people frequently drive local made vehicles – trucks, sedans and station wagons. They are very nationalistic, and don’t like change. Their best time is spent with their friends, talking, having fun, hanging out. They are hard working, and are extremely conservative in their views, and most likely religious. Their typical Saturday is driving their locally made people mover to church, football practice and then home to watch the game. Think trailergaters at NASCAR or Manchester United fanatics.

image-1-1_ted_van_pelt-e1425383970181

Image:Ted van Pelt

What resonates?

Make sure your messaging is family or community oriented. Emphasize  if your product or service is made LOCALLY and is the same as things have always been. Words like trusted,  reliable and made right here resonate. They believe good thing take time – even marketing and are willing to build a personal relationship with a brand. They all by Levis because they trust it and always have.  Belongers are brand loyal, get them to buy once and they tend to stay with you.

What alienates?

Belongers hate anything new, foreign and game changing. Worse still if it fragments them from their community. One-on-one Bikram hot Yoga training would be their worst nightmare.

Achiever – 5 to 7% of the population:

Achievers are the business elite. The one percenters. Constant growth focus and need for power and status are key. They work 100 hour weeks. they wear own and drive the best. Think top hedge fund managers, bankers, Fortune 500 CXOs and the elite entrepreneurs.

The opposite to belongers – Achievers will go so far as to customise their elite vehicles, just to make sure it set them apart. They buy top of the line Rolls Royce, Maybach or Bugatti and will then spend the price of an average car in upgrading and personalising.

They don’t shop – they bring the tailor in. Where the masses enter – they exit.

1-2_axlon23-e1425384090395

image: Axlon23

What resonates?

You need an elevator pitch – don’t waste their time. Make it personal, innovative and elite. Talk about power, money, and profit.

What alienates?

Slow, stumbling presentations about old, common, conservative, non-innovative products. Talk about how your product will homogenize them and make them part of a community – one of the masses.

Emulator / Wanna be – 15% of the population:

These guys are achiever groupies. Everything they do is to try and look like an achiever. Thier Subconscious war cry is “fake it till you make it”.  Yet their motivator is often acceptance amongst peers or from the opposite sex. Not the relentless focus on power and wealth that Achievers have.

They buy BMW 1 series – just to say they have a BMW. Wear fake Rolex or cheaper “luxury” brands. The product that is one step down from what their idol Achiever is wearing.

But its not limited to business people – this group could be emulating top musicians, sports stars or actors too. This group suffers from low self esteem and needs peer approval. They will spend whatever money they have on anything that will make them look like their ideal: “successful”.

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Image: M:93

What resonates?

Anything that can make them look like an achiever, successful and appeal to their peers or the opposite sex.

What alienates?

Telling them they’re fine the way they are, to settle and that this will make them normal.

Socially Conscious Type A – 25% of the population:

Thier main focus is the effect their actions will have on the world. They’re environmentally concerned, they recycle, have solar power and their car will be at the least economical and practical – if not solar. They feel no need to belong, but are conscious for the community as a whole and want to make a difference. Education is paramount and most are highly educated with one or two university degrees. They like to help the homeless and the poor, the socially disadvantaged.

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Image: Windel Oskay

What resonates?

This profile has seen the most growth in recent years. Your product or service must make a difference to either society or the environment. Educated and savvy Socially Concious type A will Google your product or service and do the research. They spot fake environmentalism and social conscience in a second. They will need physical proof and tar industries with the same brush – so you’ll need to be totally transparent to win them over.

What alienates?

Simply show the power and money your organisation makes – ignore Kyoto initiatives and carbon offsetting. Better yet – pollute waters around baby seal colonies.

Socially Conscious Type B – 7% of the population:

All of the Socially Conscious Type A characteristics apply here – but type B believes that there is no hope for humanity as a whole. They have rationalised that they can only change things for s small group. You’ll find them in Ecovillages, communes and on islands.

1-5_tom_chance-e1425384556218

Image: Tom Chance

What resonates?

Very little will reach this group as they are recluse and consume very little media or internet.

Anyone who is fighting against “the Man”.

What alienates?

“The Man”

Balanced / Totally integrated 1 to 2% of the population:

A mixture of the Achiever and Socially Conscious types, these few get ahead by thinking about others and the world we live in.  Their subconscious mantra might well be Harry S Trumans quote:

“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit”.

Their definition of good project may very well list like the successes of Truman.

Yvon Chouinard – CEO of Patagonia is the perfect example of this profile.

1-6_sam_beebe-e1425384647931

Image: Sam Beebe

What resonates?

Benefitting mankind as a whole and doing it in a way that sustains momentum (a profit to keep building their business ethically).

What alienates?

Much like their Type A counterparts they will spot anything but ultra transparency and fakes with ease and hate it.

Needs driven 15% of the population:

Either on benefits or in and around the minimum wage this group are socially reliant and can’t afford to save money. They spend when they have it and beyond. Their mode is survival. Yet curiously they will buy from the local store in the moment rather than take the bus to a large retailer where they could get it cheaper.

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Image: Shawn Leishman

What resonates?

I think I have just discovered my inner Socially Conscious Type A as I find it hard to justify targeting this group. Those aiming to sell not help this market should use urgency and how your product will make them look rich and be happy now. Use fear. Impulse buying on infomercials and once in a lifetime offers are the key. Reinforce their low self esteem and how your product will change that.

What alienates?

Price. And any type of reminder that they are struggling.

What other brands do your fans follow? This will indicate their psychographic profile.

Leveraging these profiles are a great step to creating buyer personas that resonate further. Of course there will be those who fit within these groups well and many who are a mixture of two or more profiles.

Look at other brands your fans like on Facebook and you will validate your psychographic assumptions.

  • BMW, Armani,  and Mens Fitness – you have got a tribe of Emulators
  • Patagonia, Zopa, Toms Shoes and Tesla – You may well have a tribe of Socially Conscious Type A
  • NASCAR, Budweiser, and ESPN – Sounds like a Belongers tribe.

I challenge you to explore creating content that appeals to one or two of these markets. Test how your product or service would sit with each of the profiles. More and more Generation Y and Z are aligning with Socially Conscious Type A each day so pay particular attention to this crowd.

Get technical and create multiple variants. Do some A/B testing of your landing pages and switch out your imagery and creatives on social media. This might reveal the true nature of your target audience and which half of your marketing is useless.

What change will you be making to your messaging and marketing online with these in mind?

Local Business Social Media and Online Marketing – To Generate Leads

Local businesses and salespeople need to really focus more on their online marketing. With the growth in mobile devices there is so much opportunity to have your business found through search engines or shared through social media from anywhere.

Even if you’re just a local Auckland business marketing to your suburb, you can also be discovered from anywhere. You need to have an online presence that shines for prospective customers.

With marketing online, the end game is getting a list of contacts that you can market to.

In the old days this was a physical address but now it’s the all important email address.

To get these emails we create an online ‘Sales’ funnel. The funnel will look like this:

  1. advertising driving awareness and traffic
  2. read magnets
  3. lead magnets
  4. marketing
  5. asking for the sale
  6. maintaining a relationship with your loyal customers

A read magnet is really good free content that people consume. It’s a gift to potential clients. The aim with this content is to make it so good that people feel that they need to reciprocate the gift by doing something in return.

They do this through sharing the content or downloading an eBook or booking a webinar. These items are your lead magnets. Valuable content that you may charge small fee for or you might just give away too.

Your lead magnet of course requires their email, and maybe some basic details.

(I have a lead magnet of sorts in my free audit tool).

From there you have the ability to market to them on a regular basis and take them down a funnel to ultimately buy from you or subscribe to your services.

Building an email list is the one thing that you need to make the main thing consistently.

With your funnel in place – we then drive traffic to the funnel using social media or paid advertising.

So how do I use Social Media?

To understand the best approach to this we need to understand traditional and modern media.

 

Traditional mass media

Television, radio and print media are platforms where you need to pay to get your content shared – they provide us with entertainment and education.

We watch/listen/read programs or publications that:

  • tell us what the latest news is
  • entertain us and make us feel better
  • educate us on how to be smarter, fitter, richer, etc.

In between TV shows (if we don’t Tivo or Sky record and jump over them) brands inject ads. We’ve come to accept its the price we pay for the entertainment they provide.  Local business marketing has had some take up for radio and TV but many find it too expensive and untargeted.  People that aren’t in an area they service see the message and often the leads are uniformed.

Social Media and more specifically Facebook has become mass media


We go there for entertainment and to keep up with our community.  People only share and interact with content that will:

  • tell us what the latest news is
  • make us feel better
  • make us look better (smarter, fitter, richer etc) in front of their peers.

But because these new online mass marketing channels like Facebook don’t have ad breaks we are very wary of brands, companies and local businesses putting ads in our news feed.

But Facebook is mass targeted media

We are still very reluctant to accept that it’s the price we have to pay for the entertainment social networks provide.

Local business marketing has take this up because they see it as inexpensive targeted. The smart ones pay to get their message in front of exactly the right type of customer. But what do they say?

The workaround for social media and online marketing

Some say the key to success in business is leading with generosity – being of service to your customers.

If we share educational content around the local services we offer we will be found online through SEO. People will share our content as the local expert if it is:

  • topical
  • makes them feel better
  • or is useful in making them feel smarter, fitter or richer in that area.

To help you create or share content that is topical and entertaining visit Google alerts to create an email that is sent to you as new content is indexed for:

  • topical news in your industry
  • local philanthropic news that could make them feel better

This is a fairly clinical description of how to be a relatable person online but sometimes we forget to be relatable and dive straight into selling.

In Browns Bay last week the if I was a local business in Browns Bay I would share photos of this and how you’re proud of the community getting involved.  While this won’t generate leads, you will be seen as a connector in your community and this topical entertaining content is relatable.

It’s not enough to just produce ‘content’ – Your Uniqueness your USP and niche has to shine 

People do business with people they know, like and trust.

Ultimately, regardless of our job or career, we are all salespeople. Some sell products or services, others buy-in on ideas or concepts and many are just convincing others to do their bidding.

We all have something that makes us unique as salespeople and that capacity needs to be your ‘angle’ online. Your unique selling point needs to come through as there are so many of us out there vying for eyeballs and dollars. Your angle allows you to create long tail keywords – which basically means when people look for something specific you have less competitors in search results.

There is one person online touting that they are “fluent in Agile Digital Marketing, Portuguese, Spanish and Residential Architecture”. Don’t bother Googling. I’m the only result.

We can add to this uniqueness our audience. This might be through simple demographic and geographic segmentation of your market. Even better would be creating a buyer persona. A description of your ideal customer that you can address when creating content. With this persona you can ask each time you blog, create a video, post on social media. Will this resonate with ‘Sam ‘ my ideal customer and does it help them on their journey with my business.

If we know our audience, our uniqueness and what problem we solve it is far easier to evaluate if a marketing any activity fits with our business.

We can then get your audience to “know” you online and create a loyal connections with people that share your posts and ultimately buy your product or service and encourage others to do the same.

Remember the more valuable the content the more people will perceive your products or services to be of even greater value.

There’s a tendency to hold back from divulging secrets online. Your secret is in the fact that you can combine your services in your unique way to create success for your small local business, yourself or your brand.

So what do you share in specific networks?

Not having a company profile for you local business on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google and Twitter is a missed opportunity to:

  • create links to your website
  • be found or shared by other members of the network
  • to interact with your customers
  • to drive traffic to your read magnets – the start of your ‘sales’ funnel.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a business social network, an online resume and content sharing platform for business people.

People use this network to find jobs or work and to learn from others how to be better professionals.

Sharing
Share content that is relevant to your local audience and that makes you be seen as the local expert. Respect that it is a business platform. Memes and potty humor has no place here – or anywhere you’re trying to be professional right?

Recommending
One other useful piece of functionality on LinkedIn are the recommendations

If you can, request a recommendation on LinkedIn and connect with each of your customers. LinkedIn even lets you suggest wording for a potential recommendation – this is an opportunity for you to incorporate local keyword terms and your speciality into the recommendation. Make it easy for them to recommend your services and products.

Connecting
LinkedIn is a great tool for collecting and maintaining business contacts. Use it to introduce contacts to others that may need their service. I call this Triadic connections. If you do this regularly and often, people will come to you and think of you as a connector – the local expert that ‘knows somebody that does X’.

Facebook

Facebook is the main social network for the majority of people in the English speaking world.  

People use this network to keep in touch with family and friends, sometimes to learn and regularly to entertain themselves.

Sharing
Remember people like to share content on Facebook that’s:

  • topical
  •  makes them feel better
  •  or is useful in making them feel smarter, fitter or richer in that area.

Get yourself set up with a Facebook business page and try to attain fans that really like your business.  As people discover your content and they’ll like your page to receive more.

Buying page likes can have a negative effect on reach – for each unengaged follower you acquire (people that don’t enjoy your content by giving it a like, comment or share) you decrease the reach of your posts.

Promoting posts and linking to your site is a great way to get traffic. Targeted posts – even at just 5 or 10 dollars a post allows you to target specific audiences on Facebook. In general for about 1.4 cents you can reach a person on Facebook.

We can also “retarget” those that visit your website with an ad to remind them to come back.  Once you have a database of emails (from followers on your website) you can use that list to market to them on Facebook and to what Facebook calls look-alike groups. Those with similar profiles – that would have a similar propensity to like, share your content and enter your sales funnel.

Twitter

 

Twitter is the second social network for the majority of people in the English speaking world.
People use this network to find out about breaking news and to share and discover content on specific themes.

Sharing
It is a great place to share content on your industry for all audiences. The users of Twitter are a small subset of your target audiences. That said,  journalists, gatekeepers and key industry experts are on Twitter.  Aim to use the fast-paced news focus of Twitter for newsjacking opportunities. You can follow trending events by clicking on a #hashtag and then using that hashtag within your message to reach others that are reading that stream.

Here are two examples of newsjacking:

  1. California trial lawyer comments on legal aspects of news to grow influence
    Mitch Jackson
  2. Hillary Clinton leveraged the #superbowl hashtag.

     

Instagram

The fourth big social network and owned by Facebook.
People use this network to share pictures of their world, motivational quotes and memes.

Sharing
A lot of brands, celebrities, authors and consultants use this channel to show behind the scenes, the personality of their brand in an authentic manner. The only clickable link from this mobile centric app is in you profile so it is challenging to drive traffic to your website without creating a sponsored post.

Google business

Although the google plus is not the most lively of social networks, creating a business page at https://business.google.com/manage/ allows you to register your details and confirm your location.

This is great when people search for your local business as it will show result near them. In this example you can see burger joints near me in Auckland. These results are pushing the organic or unpaid search results further down the page.

Burger Fuel and McDonald’s are paying to appear above the map results and the first organic result for arguably the better burger joint ‘Burger Burger’ only just features on the page.

Using Search Engines to drive traffic to your sales funnel

With your blog posts and read magnets in place, use AdWords campaigns and YouTube video preroll to reach your audience.

With search engine marketing your audience are seeking answers or products. You could choose to pay for exact matches on your product or service like the burger joints are doing above, and have some success with expensive short generic keywords.

Or you could look to use the long tail ‘more niche’ keyword phrases that are related to your read magnets.

If your read magnet is the perfect answer to their question then think of other ways you would phrase the question. Group those terms and and craft an ad that matches the question. This  can really gear up your lead generation and is really limited only by what you consider to be an acceptable cost per acquisition. To put it into perspective,  if you sell a set of tyres with a profit margin of $500 would you mind paying say $5 to have them visit your website and request a quote?

Running online advertising also has a secondary benefit of brand awareness. Google also offers the ability to retarget or re-market to people that have visited your website. The conversion rate for retargeting is significantly higher, but as you may have experienced you can get tired of seeing the same banners everywhere.

Creating end dates and rules around specific pages on your website will optimise the experience for your visitors and your costs. For example if a visitor has completed a purchase then retargeting them with the same product should end.

And with the world consuming more and more video you could explore pre-roll advertisements on YouTube. Again targeting topics and keywords related to your product, service or read magnet topics.

Using other websites and events portals to drive traffic

Groupon / GRAB One / Daily Deals sites

These websites allow you to create fires sales of certain products or services by offering a discount. They have their own existing social media networks, search engine optimisation and Adwords marketing that drive traffic to their websites. So why not leverage them to gear up your sales funnel.

Eventbrite / Meetup / event tools

Similar to the portals mentioned above. If you have an online or offline event coming up you could use these networks drive traffic to your sales funnel as well.

 

OK, so there’s a starter path for local businesses and consultancies to get started online.  I’d love to answer any queries you might have around how to go about specific areas like AdWords or SEO or Social Media. Just drop me a line or contact me. Contact Nick

Podcast 36: Panel Discussion – Using Social Media to Grow Your Business

Welcome to episode 36 of the Waiake – My podcast to help you take your brand to new heights online.

In this episode I wanted to share with you the wisdom of my three co panellists from the recent Harcourts Real Estate Conference. We talk about digital marketing and using social media to grow your business.

We were interviewed by Troy Rawhiti-Forbes who has for the last few years been the conduit between New Zealand’s largest telco and our nation on Twitter and Facebook. Having experienced the highs of branding brilliance and the lows of national outages and email hacks Tory is in good space to bring out the best in my fellow guests and to prompt me to say a few things of merit too.

Coming from quite different backgrounds it was really interesting to get some diverse perspectives – yet hear some common themes as to whats best when using social media to grow your audience and business.

I’ll let you hear Tory give the impressive introductions (I cringed through mine) and I hope you find it of worth as the topics covered work in many industries.

If you’re keen to follow along the other panelist are:

HR

Key takeaways:

  • Know your Unique Selling Points and incorporate this into your online presence and SEO.
  • Don’t be afraid to try new networks, find out what fits best with you.
  • Always be transparent in your actions.
  • Think – “What would I want to hear from a brand?” and “How does this help my customers?”

HR

Good Marketing

Good marketing uses technology, insights and the right questions.

It gives the right audience, the right message, at the right time.

It shows us how a brand can solve our problems. Sometimes problems we didn’t know we had.

It can either entertain you or make you feel more inclined to buy from a brand. When it does both, you’re onto a winner.

Why do we do this Content Marketing thing?

With content marketing we try to address our audience’s problems at various stages of the buyer’s journey. We help them discover a solution to their problem and keep them coming back to us – their trusted solution provider. Our constant battle is for the attention of that audience. Big companies are realising that they need to build or acquire their own audience, so as to not fall foul of Facebook Edge-rank or Google algorithm updates.

Companies need to start thinking of themselves as retailers AND media companies

One company that has done this well recently is Surfstitch. They acquired two media properties Magicseaweed and Stab Magazine (great names). Combined they have around 3 million visitors a year and they are interweaving articles featuring their products to become not only surfing’s biggest online retailer, but also the biggest industry content network.

https://twitter.com/worldnews_net/status/598291602629664768

If this video is anything to go by, they will have me discovering a whole range of solutions they have to my problems.

It seems I didn’t realise I needed a custom bike to ride up the Indonesian coast to go surfing. They’re appealing to the hearts and emotions of their audience – not to the features of their product.

Oh and if surfing/bikes/the open road is your thing – check this out

Their latest film – North To Noosa.

I can see there being more brands that will take to content creation as a source of brand value and distinction.

Netflix even paid journalists a good sum to create great editorial – like this piece on women in prison to link to their new series Orange is the new black

Empathy, respect and love will ultimately keep your audience, clients, coworkers, lover friends and family EVERYONE coming back.

If you can interweave your unique purpose, principles and pet peeves into entertaining them – you’ll stand out as their trusted provider.