Category — Marketing Mistakes and Solutions

Image via Wikipedia

What are you emphasizing in your marketing?  That you’re the best?  Or that you specialize in web sites for startups?

What are you really selling?

Someone on Marketing Profs asked how they can tell their web site visitors that they’re the only vendor on the Knot (wedding) website that is located in Arizona and specializes in lighting. The other vendors all do lots of other things, including provide DJs, flowers, and decorations.

Right track

The lighting vendor is on the right track (if you’ll pardon the pun). He’s focusing on doing one thing and doing it well. He’s obviously learned how to find a market niche.  He does lighting.  For weddings.  Period.

Wrong strategy

The strategy is a little off though. He’s emphasizing something (being the only Knot lighting vendor in his state) that doesn’t matter.

What does matter to brides is looking good on her wedding day. What if instead of talking about himself (being the only vendor), he talked about what the bride would get.

“Look like a movie star on your wedding day.”

“Look so good Angelina will be jealous.”

He’s not really selling lighting. He’s selling glamor.

Do you know what you’re really selling?  What do your clients really want?  To look like movie stars?  To save time?  To have less stress?

Not sure? Ask in the comments.

Cool tools tomorrow!

I just tried to post a rather long comment on someone’s blog. I finished all that typing, and was unable to post it. They have a comment management system which requires you to join something else, or have an open ID, or something.  I don’t have whatever it is,  I just wanted to contribute to the discussion.  It was rather frustrating.

There’s another business blog that’s much worse. You have to fill out nine or ten different fields ! Sorry, not going to do that unless what I’ve got to say is really, really urgent.

Less friction makes a slide more fun. It also makes it more likely your visitors will comment and your clients or prospective clients will contact you. Have more than one way to do it too (email, phone, comments, contact form).

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Photo thanks to: Carbonnyc

Know how they run those ads before the movies? The ones for local businesses? Haircuts, casual restaurants, real estate agents…

Captive audience, bad message

There was one the other day that stuck in my head, but for the wrong reasons. It promised XYZ Real Estate was a “cutting edge” company, a leader in real estate since _____ with innovative solutions.

I’m not in the market for a house (don’t have the $4,000,000 it takes to buy one around here), but if I were, this company would not be at the top of my list.

They’re trying to build themselves up, rather than tell me how they can help me.

No differentiation. No niche. No message that matters to a client.

A better idea

Why not skip the gobbledygook and offer something that does matter.

For instance, help getting a loan. Or a list of 10 things I need to know before I buy a house.

Relocation assistance (what’s in my new neighborhood, getting kids enrolled in school, local grocery stores). A specialty in townhouses or condos or large families needing a home (space is at a premium in New York).

All things that would have made this real estate agent really stand out. And get more clients.

What do you think?

Do you pay any attention to those ads? Do you like them? Hate them? Do you want some popcorn?

Image: Chris Griffith

I learned these the hard way. I share them here to save you some grief (and lots of hair pulling).

1. Don’t design your ebook in Word

That’s what I did (big mistake). Now, it looks good (considering):

However, it was ridiculously hard to do. It’s like using a hammer to stir soup. Good tool, but not the right one for the job.

2. Word breaks your pretty links when you save to pdf on a Mac

By pretty links, I mean the ones that looked like MY SITE PAGE, instead of the ones that were written out http://www.mysitepage.com. ARGGHH!! It seems Mac Word and pdf files don’t play well together.

(Thank goodness for Tom Bentley, who rode to my rescue to fix it).

3. Use Pages (for Macs) or get InDesign

You’ll sleep better, and you’ll keep more of your hair.  Unlike Word, these are spoons (not hammers). They are designed for creating books, letterhead, and brochures.  Pages comes with templates which  you can use straight out of the box or modify.

4. 3-D covers look more real and substantial

See the ebook covers on the right? The top one, for the Instant Web Site Review, was designed by the super-talented Paul Durban. If you need an ebook designed, hire him.

The other two, Email Marketing Made Easy and Secrets of Writing Killer Copy, I did myself with a tutorial.

4. Make it horizontal (landscape), instead of vertical (portrait)

Most people will read it online or on a computer. Monitors are sideways rectangles.

5. Start new chapters on a fresh page

It looks cleaner, and it’s easier to read. Break up the text into small chunks (like I’m doing here). Big blocks of text are harder to read on a screen.

6. Use different fonts (and colors)

One font and color for chapter headings and headlines. Another for body text.  You can use another for callouts if you want.  Not too many, maybe two or three tops. You don’t want it to look like a ransom note.

Also, check to see how it looks on other computers/monitors/operating systems.  One of my original choices (Big Caslon), came out looking like a Star Trek font on a Windows machine.

7. Use pictures

You can find interesting images for free online.  Here are some places to get free images.  Make sure they have the right creative commons (for commercial use with attribution), and not a share-alike license. Otherwise, you may make your work shareable (and sellable) by other people.

8. Buy a design book

Get a copy of Designing for Non-Designers by Robin Williams (no, not that Robin Williams). Very helpful, as is her Looking Good in Print.

9. Hire a pro

Did I mention that already? Gack!

Send him or her the copy in plain text, or with as little formatting as possible.

If you want something to be a headline or a table, make a note in the text. Or, add instructions saying headlines in bold, tables in blue, or whatever.

10. Get extra sets of eyes

Have other people look at it before you ship.  They’ll catch dumb mistakes you missed.

It’s also a good way to find out if you’ve gotten your points across clearly, or if you’ve used abbreviations or jargon that your audience doesn’t understand.

What in the world is an Eierlegendewollmilchsau?

I just learned this word today, from Carmen, who was kind enough to let me share it with you.

It means an egg-laying wool milk pig.

Something that doesn’t make sense. An animal that is trying to do too many things at once.

Are you an Eierlegendewollmilchsau?

But, sometimes, in the rush to get new business, or grow our influence, we forget that companies cannot be Eierlegendewollmilchsaus. As Carmen said, “You can’t be everything to everyone and neither can your organization. Segment, compartmentalize, create a spin-off, do whatever you have to do resist the temptation to become an Eierlegendewollmilchsau.”

What that means is that you need to concentrate your marketing efforts in one place. Don’t try to lay eggs, produce wool, give milk, and become bacon.

If you want to pursue different passions, such as life coaching and opera singing, separate them.

Pick your “people”

Don’t try to sell to the US military, your local dry cleaners, and stay-at-home moms at the same time. Choose your “fish.”

Build your expertise and your reputation

If you’re a web designer, be a great web designer. Don’t try to design, develop databases, write copy, and streamline packing and shipping all at once.

That’s a Eierlegendewollmilchsau. If you regularly get projects that require multiple skills, form partnerships.

I’m good with words, for instance, but nobody in their right mind wants me to code SQL databases. I leave that to other people.

Share your thoughts

What do you think?  Do you know of any companies that are  Eierlegendewollmilchsaus?  And, did you think I’d be able to find a picture of one?

Many thanks to cocoate for this image