Interrupting people and shouting at them is a very unnatural form of human communication. So why is this still the main operating principle of marketing?
Please read and comment on today’s newsletter, Advertising is the worst kind of marketing.
I’m organizing my day with my normal tools: laptop, notes from yesterday, a bowl of cereal, and the news on the TV. Suddenly, a commercial for a bipolar depression medication comes on. Since I have a friend with this disease, I start to listen to the ad, which, in the first 15 seconds, seemed compelling. However, the last 45 seconds was overpowered by a voiceover delivering a long list of medical warnings. If you’re a teen, you may commit suicide. If you’re elderly, it may increase your dementia. If you play golf left-handed, it may increase your slice on dogleg par 5’s.
Compulsory medical warnings on TV commercials are stupid. They are unnecessary. These warnings are based on the fallacy that advertising is the deciding factor in creating purchase decisions. It isn’t, especially for these kinds of products. The purpose of pharmaceutical television advertising is to get you to ask your doctor, or to encourage you to tell a loved one to ask his doctor, about the medication. The doctor is responsible for diagnosis and prescription. MSNBC and ABC aren’t. If we can’t trust the doctor to deliver the warnings, then he shouldn’t be prescribing.
And, these warnings are a pain in the you-know-what for the 99% of the people watching the commercial who don’t have Restless Leg Syndrome, or whatever illness is being advertised. We have to listen to a litany of unappetizing side effects and, let’s not kid ourselves, we’re all paying for it. The ad I saw this morning was a :60, and it could have easily been a :30 if it didn’t include warnings about orthostatic hypertention and hallucinations. CNN made some cash, but the rest of us lost out – I’m sure AstraZeneca’s pricing model includes amortization of these premium advertising costs. (Here’s an idea for reducing the cost of health care … maybe Harry, Nancy and Rahm are factoring this into the calculations they are working on right now …)
Advertising is an ever-smaller part of the input to purchase decisions. Come on FDA, get with the times.
The disciplines of marketing and sales need to unlearn their most fundamental principle: That marketing and sales are about disseminating information.
The accepted views of marketing and sales look something like this: Marketing is a rain cloud, showering information down on the marketplace. And sales is a water hose, spraying information at specific customers.
Marketing is not a rain cloud, and sales is not a water hose. If you get people wet, they will duck. They will not listen.
Marketing and sales are not about spraying your stories at customers. They are about creating engaging stories in your customers’ mind, stories in which you figure as an important character.
Stop showering your customers with information. Start engaging them in conversations
Sales and marketing are not about telling stories. Sales and marketing are about helping your customer create a story, in his mind, in which you figure as a prominent, clear, vibrant character. If your customer tells himself a meaningful, motivating story that includes you, he will be much more likely to get more involved with you, and take actions that improve your business results.
Stop telling stories about yourself. Instead, figure out how to make yourself part of your customer’s story.
Today’s newsletter is the sixth article in my series on determining how effective your company’s marketing is. We’ve looked at results, customer actions, customer beliefs, the customer experience, internal branding and senior managment’s meddling in the marketing process.
Today’s issue is titled Does your marketing department get it done? Does it?
Whether you work in a marketing department or with a marketing department, you know what a busy profession marketing is. Everyone is always working hard, juggling multiple priorities, trying get everything done. So what’s the key variable, how hard you work? No …
In today’s entertaining newsletter, Steve challenges companies to evaluate how effective they allow their marketing department to be. He describes common ways that companies get in the way of their marketing department, with such titles as the “Yellow Hubcap Syndrome” and the “Halt! Who Goes There! Defense.”
Chances are, every reader will see that his company sometimes falls prey to at least one of these problems. We’d love to hear of your experiences and advice in the comments.
Read the newsletter: Does management allow its marketing professionals to succeed?
Today’s newsletter, Most Companies Stop Marketing, is Part 3 of my series about how to tell if your company is doing good marketing.
Marketing is about encouraging your customers to act in ways that improve your business results. Since it’s often hard to track marekting results directly, the seven questions I address in this series can help you evaluate your company’s marketing efforts. Today we are focusing on this question: Are your marketing efforts integrated over the entire lifecycle of a customer’s relationship with your company?
Companies that practice great marketing don’t stop marketing once they acquire a customer. Great marketing builds long-term relationships with customers.
Let’s say you need to talk about marketing with a non-marketing executive. How should you do it?
Don’t talk about marketing.
My life-long empirical study shows this: Most executives are suspicious of the marketing advice they receive. Why?
To quote one exec, “They keep talking about all this friggin’ marketing.”
Through my workshops and consulting, I spend a lot of time with C-level executives who don’t have a marketing background. They are skeptical when marketers sell marketing ideas as marketing ideas, and not as business ideas. They are skeptical when marketers look at a marketing budget as an entitlement, and not as an investment. And they are skeptical when marketers talk about marketing as a secret, magic formula, that only marketing professionals can understand.
My advice, if you need to sell a non-marketing executive on a marketing idea: Don’t talk about marketing.
Talk about business issues that matter. Talk about the business results your marketing program is designed to generate. Talk not about what your marketing program does, but what it does for the business.
If you want to sell a C-level executive on a customer loyalty program, don’t talk first about frequency of communications, and (please!) don’t talk about database technology. Focus on the untapped latent profit in your existing customer base.
If you want a new budget to focus on social media, don’t talk about social media as a mega-trend, and how it is important to show your customers you “get it.” Focus on how peer-to-peer marketing capitalizes on your company’s strength in gaining business through customer referrals.
Many marketers are reticent when it comes to talking about results because many of their most important programs can’t be tied directly to results; it’s hard to show how many customers came to you because of a story in the New York Times, or because you got more sign-ups on your Facebook fan page. But that’s all the more reason to talk about results. Because direct results are hard to demonstrate, it’s important to show that you have created marketing strategies that aim for the right results. A strategic foundation can build confidence when direct, measurable results don’t exist.
Change the frame of reference. If you have a business conversation, and not a marketing conversation, the person with whom you are speaking will be much more receptive to your marketing ideas.
In today’s newsletter, I focus on Question 3 of the 6 questions I use when I begin to evaluate a company’s marketing efforts.
Question 3 asks, “Are you clear about the rich story you want your customers to understand?“ Many companies look at their brands in a very cursory way, while their customers are willing to create rich brand stories in their minds. One step to great marketing: Create a rich brand story that encourages customers to think, “I get it, I want it and I can’t get it anywhere else.”
How can you tell if your company is doing good marketing? That question is the subject of Steve’s newsletter today. Over the next couple weeks, he’s going to explore the following six questions to help you evaluate and improve your company’s marketing strategy:
Today, he focuses on the first two questions. Here’s the link again: How can you tell if your company is doing good marketing?
"When Steve Yastrow writes, I pay close attention"
- Tom Peters
"I had to buy two copies. The first one is so dog-eared and underlined I couldn't read it any longer."
- Seth Godin
Chicago's Daily Herald features a business editorial discussing the importance of We customer relationships in today's economy.
Microsoft's Retailspeak asks Steve how recalibrating for today's economy can help retailers thrive.
Sign up for Steve’s blog
Read Steve's Free Ebook to start benefiting from profitable We relationships.
Encounters: The Building Blocks of We Relationships (Adobe PDF)
In addition to writing, I spend most of my work time helping companies unleash their potential by creating better connections with their customers. This happens through my speaking events and through Yastrow & Company consulting engagements, where my team and I help companies figure out who they intend to be in the future, and then engage the entire company in creating that future through strong "We" customer relationships.
Before starting Yastrow & Company in the mid-90s I was vice-president of resort marketing for Hyatt Hotels. My experiences in the hotel business showed me clearly that most marketing doesn’t happen in the marketing department. Customers are paying attention to all interactions with a company, not just the promises made in traditional "marketing communications."
For more information, see our About page.
