Seek Out / Keep Out February 25, 2006
I just read a really interesting post at just a blip, Baba Shetty’s blog. Although the point he makes references the ad industry, it’s something that should be applied to all of our marketing efforts and creative endevaours. Create something worth seeking out.
When we were at Fallon together David Lubars used to explain the logic of BMW Films with the phrase ’seek out’. As in, ‘what if we reversed the polarity of advertising and created stuff that people would seek out.’ I always thought that was pretty good.
So I’m going to do an open source thing with David’s phrase — I’ll add the ‘Keep out’ part as the flip side of it. It’s really the two sides of the coin that describe the dominant media behavior of the era. Consumers today can be more purposefully intentional in their consumption of products, services and media by seeking out – via search, online recommendations, endless browsing, and subscribing to content or people networks. But simultaneously they’re filtering out of their field of attention everything they don’t want — via DVRs, the ‘do not call’ registry, spam and popup filters, noise-reduction headphones and iPods. And of course the biggest filter of all, the simple refusal to pay attention to anything that isn’t useful or doesn’t delight.
Simple enough proposition. Either create something worth seeking out, or you will be kept out.
Imagination Does A Business Good January 27, 2006
I was lurking around entrepreneur.com and found this interesting article by Al Lautenslager who’s a guerrilla marketing coach. The article talks about using your imagination to create a good marketing campaign, Al says "A successful guerrilla marketing campaign takes effort, not cash." So read up and I hope you enjoy the article like I did.
Guerrilla marketing is often described as marketing using time, energy, imagination and information vs. your hard-earned profits. One of the key words in this definition is the word "imagination." I run across many people that hear the many stories about guerrilla tactics, and they always say "What a great imagination…That must be guerrilla marketing." To guerrilla marketers, that’s music to their ears.
Using your imagination doesn’t cost anything. True, it costs you a lot of time, blood, sweat and tears to get you to the point of being able to use your imagination based on your education and experiences, but no money is taken out of your checking account to pay for an imaginative idea.
Webster defines imagination as: "The ability to confront and deal with reality by using the creative power of the mind; resourcefulness; an unrealistic idea or notion; a fancy; a plan or scheme." Let’s look at some unrealistic ideas or schemes that were hatched by a little bit of imagination:
- I passed a realtor’s sign the other day, and the agent’s name was Lester. His website was www.lesterthelister.com. Sounds kind of corny, but it will get noticed, and people will remember it.
- Henderson’s Appliance Store in St. Louis was in business for more than 40 years and needed some revitalization. They had never had a tag line. Since they sold refrigerators, grills, washers and dryers, they dug deep on how they could convey to the marketplace what they really do. The resulting tag line now used in all their marketing is: "We cook it, we chill it, we clean it."
- Here’s one any company can use. Imagine (there’s that word again) passing out fliers for your local high school football team’s game with "Go Wildcats" (or whatever their mascot is) on one side. Can you imagine every fan standing up cheering and waving their free flier? On the reverse side, your logo and phone number appears. Every time the flier is displayed, the fan stares right at your company information. Sure, you have to pay to get the fliers printed, but in the total scheme of things, imagination is what generated awareness for the business on the reverse side. That’s guerrilla marketing.
Sometimes imagination leads to outrageousness. That’s OK. That’s what gets noticed, and that’s what gets remembered. Best of all-and consistent with guerrilla marketing-it usually doesn’t cost a whole lot. Imagine (yes, I repeated it on purpose) a mailing that comes as a bank money bag, a printed paper bag or the lumpy mail pack that has a silver platter in it with a sales letter to correspond. These are all low-cost tactics that a customer and prospect will see and eventually act upon or remember.
As you can see, a creative idea can go a long way. People many times will talk about the cool idea more than the product, but of course the product is always mentioned. It’s almost like people go around saying, "I wish I would have thought of that," and they start thinking of imaginative ideas for their products or services.
Brainstorm how you can use your imagination to market your product or service. As they say with anything related to your imagination, "You are only limited by your imagination."
Imagination doesn’t cost anything; that’s one of the primary components of guerrilla marketing. Imagination is one of those things that can make your marketing fun. Involve others. Involve customers and prospects. Break out of your typical mode of doing business. That will definitely get you noticed.
Put some energy and enthusiasm behind your idea, and you’ll soon have your market talking about your imagination and, eventually, your products and services.
Click here if you wish to read the original article
T.V. Busting January 10, 2006
Well I have not posted in almost a week, sorry for those out there who might have been waiting for my next post. Seeing that my last post got a few comments I have decided to go with doing another slightly idea generated post. This isn’t actually a new idea it’s pretty old but I have had thoughts on how to add a little twist on it. So bear with me while I explain what I mean, I might jump around a little in this post but it should all flow together like a stream of water, HA, no one thought I had a little poet in me.
So what I have been noticing for awhile now is the bathroom advertising done mainly in restaurants, bars, clubs, movie theatre’s, etc. places like these. Now don’t get me wrong some are done real well and are very attention grabbing especially the one’s right over the urinals, in the men’s bathroom (sorry ladies don’t know what’s going on in the woman’s restroom) I mean your not doing anything anyway so your going to read what’s posted right there in front of you. Other campaigns are very mundane and boring so I don’t even want to get into those.
Now some of you may have already seen this, but I have yet, I want to see ads run on TV’s in the bathroom and many other places. Now I am not talking about the local bar that has the T.V. up at the corner on the wall showing ESPN or something. I am talking specials for the particular restaurant, bar, and club whatever they could also run short ads for surrounding business, which would add another money stream towards the business. The TV’s wouldn’t need to be big it’s all about placement of the screens, like above the urinals, in the bathroom stall door so when it’s closed for that sit down time for yourself you have something quick to look at. Also which I like a lot would be to place a nice size screen within the middle of the mirror at the sink area which would draw a lot of attention.
For all you entrepreneur’s out there if you’re asking yourself ok sounds pretty good but I don’t own a business in those arenas or any business at all. This is the service side of getting some business stirred up for you. You would be the company that approaches these places with this idea. You would help with T.V. placement and installation; help create the ads if they need it. Also if they wanted to allocate some time for ads from other business’ to be included you would be the one finding that good match that will mesh together well and help both companies out. You don’t need to run an ad for a pet store at your local bar that’s a half an hour drive away.
Thinking on a bigger scale you can easily take this method to many other establishments. For example you can place these same TV’s in hotel Lobbies and elevator areas, but the best Hotels would be the larger ones with a lot of floors and have a high occupancy right through out the year. This way the elevator would be in constant use which means constant people viewing it, so if some woman is riding down an elevator with her husband or friends she sees an ad from a store around the corner or across the street saying they have a sale going on then that could flicker that shopping instinct and off she goes buying. This could help build really good relationships with store owners and Hotels they could work out deals for guest at the Hotel so they can receive discounts from the store if they show a valid key or hotel card. Banks could use it as an in house bulletin board letting customers now rates, specials, savings and loans the possibilities are there your job is to help with finding these opportunities for the companies. The Bank TV’s could have a spokesperson flash on the screen that gives all the run downs of the new Bank features/specials or just what the Bank is trying to get out there to the public. What better way to get at the bank goers than have them listening to a T.V. while they wait in line to do there transaction, get there attention when they least expect it.
I could probably think of more ideas for this but that would have me typing all day and that’s no good for you or me. Again some of these might be already in existence to some degree since I don’t have the ability to check around the world to see what’s going on but I am sure no company has done it extensively to its full potential yet. I hope this got your brain exercising some ideas and possibilities for this type of venture or something with your own little flavor to it.
Get Your Idea Going January 8, 2006
Plotting it out
I know, I know, it’s been said a million times over. I can’t stress enough how important a business plan is. Without one it’s the blind leading the blind. With the right plan you can prioritize your time and allocate your efforts and resources properly. Be careful, though; a plan is worthless if you don’t have the discipline to complete each step that you’ve outlined for yourself before moving on to the next item “to-do”.
Writing a business plan can be confusing; I highly suggest using Palo-Alto Software’s “Business Plan Pro” to help make the task easier and more concise. Check it out here: Business Plan Pro 2006
Clear your mind, clear the clutter
This is an entire topic on it’s own which I will touch on next week, but I have to mention it. Your time, money and creative energy is precious, especially during the startup phases. Try to eliminate the procrastinating tasks (we all have them) that occupy too much of your time. Do you really need to check your E-mail 10 times an hour (or more?). If it’s important enough, they’ll call you. Do you really need to check your bank balance that often? Do you need to change your desktop wallpaper everyday? Eliminate the unimportant tasks and focus on the things that are going to make your dreams come true.
Follow your gut
Ditch the distractions and listen to your gut instinct. If you’re a serious entrepreneur and you’re serious about building your business and growing your idea, you can feel decisions in your gut before you make them. Go with it. No one ever got anywhere by over analyzing. Focus your energy on defining your business and personal goals, know what you want, and let your entrepreneurial instinct take you to the finish line. Evaluate what’s a distraction and what’s really going to get you from point A to point B. If you’re feeling distracted, take some quiet time to yourself, ask yourself (out loud helps) what you should be doing right now instead of procrastinating and I promise you’re gut instincts will lead the way.
I know this is somewhat of a motivational type post, but we all need it sometimes. Ring in 2006 the right way and get focused. Start building the life you desire today, not tomorrow.
Guerilla Graffiti January 5, 2006
Two nights ago I was sitting in my friend Craig’s basement and it was around 12:30am when we were discussing his addiction to graffiti tagging. He was telling me the crazy stories of what people do to get there tag up in the oddest places, he even said how there are a lot of deaths from tagging every year in New York City.
Then he proceeded to tell me all these graffiti statistics he learned while living in New York. He told me how the NYPD have a special graffiti unit dedicated to catching those hundreds of taggers in the city. They have special classes for those who have been arrested for tagging he said they are similar to classes for people caught shoplifting. Then he told me that each New Yorker sees at least 50 graffiti tags per day, that instantly turned the light bulb in my head on (being that I always have business on my mind). I thought to myself wow that’s a lot of tags seen daily New York City has a huge population. So when I got home around 1:30am I decided to Yahoo NYC’s population.
The last reported population count done for the city was back in 2004 and that total number was 8,104,079 people. Now if each person sees at least 50 tags a day that is 405,203,950 tags seen in one day, that’s a lot of coverage.
Now here comes the idea if companies could find a legal or non legal way depending on how law biding the company was, they could hire some of these graffiti artist on a freelance level to tag numerous amounts of places and things then company/product awareness will hit a tremendous high note. Just imagine getting as little as 1% of this type of coverage in one area in one day which is 4,052,039 eyes looking at what you have to say how effective do you think your message will become. With systems like Tivo and DVR which allow people to skip right through commercials it’s becoming that much harder to keep eyes on your company.
This could work with subtle messages tagged throughout places to just put thoughts into peoples head while not even knowing it. If you were to walk by a funny little tag that had coca cola image of words in it you would probably think to get a coke next time you have a drink of some sort. This is the type of effect you’re looking for, that unconscious act of impulse buying or just having that thought in your mind all day like how easy it is to get a song stuck in your head.
The point of this post was more of getting your mind turning, to just give you an example of how ideas can come from anyone, anywhere at anytime. No matter if the idea is good or bad its good too always have your mind alert to new options that could potentially grow your business or give birth to your next great idea.
Happy New Year January 2, 2006
Let me be the first to wish all of our readers a Happy New Year. Welcome to 2006! We all hope this blog will prove to be informative, useful, and encouraging to you.
To kick off the new year, I think it appropriate and expected that the authors of the blog introduce ourselves. I’m Kevin, a management degree graduate of Berry College. I have attempted a few small entrepreneurial activities thus far in my life, but hope I can offer some valuable insight from the business world. My blog posts will focus on idea generation, customer service, and investing (individual, not corporate). But more on that later. For now, welcome to the blog and welcome to ‘06. Have you registered at the forum?