reynoldswriting.com Blog

When developing your marketing niche, it pays to examine what others have done to set themselves apart. And no one does this more effectively, in my opinion, than that ultimate service provider, the comic book superhero.

Think about it. Each superhero fights crime, but in his or her own peculiar way, using a unique set of powers or skills. They even name themselves after their methods or approach and wear colorful costumes to turn themselves into human billboards. These guys are marketing geniuses.

Examples:

Batman – Also known as the Dark Knight, Batman holds Gotham City, and his readers, in a mix of fear and awe. He stalks the city at night, dressed as a bat, clearly deranged from his traumatic youth, and loaded with all the money and toys it takes to accomplish his agenda. He’s scary — or at least he was, until Hollywood got ahold of him (though I suppose Adam West is disturbing enough in his own special way). Batman strikes fear into the hearts of villains and innocent citizens alike. He needs no explanation, introductions or justifications — he’s freakin’ BATMAN.

Superman – He’s the super one. Seriously, of all the superheroes out there, Superman represents the Big Cheese, the final boss, the 800-pound gorilla. He’s the one who can fly, zip from planet to planet, and throw skyscrapers at people. He holds the pre-eminent place among all those caped guys and gals. If you need a task performed that even a superhero couldn’t possibly do, call this guy and he’ll pencil it into his busy schedule.

Spiderman – Spiderman comes in especially handy when you need to defeat evil with sarcasm. He’s the cool one, the glib guy with the perfect one-liner for any occasion. And he swings from building to building on his own spider webs, because he’s just a swingin’ dude, you know? Spiderman is the hipster’s superhero.

The Flash – He’s really, really fast. That’s about it, but you’d be amazed how useful that skill can be on the right occasion. The original Flash wore a little helmet like the Greek god Hermes (that other fast guy), and in later years his successor got aerodynamic and ditched the hat for a form-fitting headpiece with little wings on each side. Oh, and a lightning blot on his chest. Lightning is fast, see.

Aquaman – He, you know, swims around and stuff. And he communicates telepathically with sea creatures. Okay, I admit I’m a little fuzzy on exactly what Aquaman’s unique value proposition is, but at least his brand is clear enough. He’s THE underwater superhero, so he enjoys an exclusive hold on his target market. Whoever that is.

I’m not telling you to go applying glitter to a pair of long-johns in preparation for your next networking mixer. I’m just saying that a clear, recognizable identity matters. If you’re a carpenter, for instance, you have to declare what sets you apart from a dozen other carpenters. Are you bigger, faster, cheaper, better? You can’t be all things to all people — but then, the Flash got along fine not being Batman. When you need to scare the dickens out of a street gang, by all means shine the Bat Signal. But when you have a need for speed, you know who to call.

Even as a copywriter, I’ve had to brand myself according to my strengths. I’m better at dazzling than explaining, so I promote myself that way on my website and elsewhere. I’m in the excitement business. That’s my cape and cowl.

What’s yours?

April Fool’s Day is coming. You know what that means — office pranks (ranging from the mildly amusing to the epic in scope), phony news stories, Rickrolling galore, and other moments of assorted oddness scattered throughout the day. Common sense tells me to hide under the bed until the 2nd, but instead I’m scheduled to give a presentation at my BNI chapter. Somebody must be trying to tell me something.

The trouble with April Fool’s Day jokes is that the difference between making people laugh and making them want to kill you is pretty much a coin toss. You have to know who your friends are, whether they can take a joke, how much of a joke they can take, and whether the joke has the potential to cause legitimate harm, physical or emotional. The wrong gag at the wrong moment can burn bridges faster than a swarm of angry, torch-laden medieval villagers.

It’s a tricky business — in real life, and in marketing.

Marketers use misdirection all the time. We’ve all encountered the “informative medical article” that turns out to be an ad for a nutritional supplement or an exercise machine or the Miracle Insole That Will Change Your Life. We’ve all been swerved by TV commercials that look for all the world like a trailer for a compelling new movie until the action hero draws a Big Gulp instead of a laser pistol. We get duped, we follow along, and when the curtain rises on the truth we say, “Ahhh, I see! So that’s where you were going. Very impressive (or funny, as the case may be). I’m sold.”

That’s what you say, right? Or do you react differently?

Let’s say you were doing serious research on that medical topic for a journal article with a tight deadline, or a business colleague who needs data, or your grandma who desperately seeks relief for her rare, terminal toenail disease. You get to the end of the “article” and find you’ve been duped. Still smiling?

Or let’s say you’re sitting in the movie theater, watching that killer trailer and making a mental note that you’ve GOT to tell your friends about this film and pre-purchase tickets for the preview — only to find yourself viewing a commercial instead. If you admire creativity, you might concede the cleverness behind the effort and return your attention to your popcorn. If, on the other hand, you really wanted to see that movie….

Don’t get me wrong. Misdirection works, as long as the intended audience (a) is in the mood to follow the rabbit trail wherever it may lead, and (b) might have a genuine interest in what they finally find. But you must know your audience, just as you must know whose door you’re propping a pail of water on top of. And whether they’re dressed for a funeral that afternoon. Yeah, I sweat the small stuff.

By the way, if you disagreed with the content of this blog — I was just kidding. If you liked it, then I was serious.

Does your business fill a need? Does it help people? Does it solve a problem?

Of course it does. And that makes you a professional problem solver. We all need professional problem solvers — people who know way more than we do about how to resolve a given issue relatively quickly and effectively. Some of these professionals even share their knowledge and insights with us just because they can. These folks are the ones we really trust, the ones we go to time after time. They are OUR experts.

You may already have established that relationship with your clients. Now, how would you like to build the same relationship with thousands or millions of people you’ve never even met?

Take Bob Vila, for example. Everyone recognizes and acknowledges him as a master craftsman, an expert in the field of home building and remodeling, and I can assure you that 99% of the people who hold that opinion have never met him, hired him or worked with him. So why does everyone agree on his expertise? Because he shares it with us through his website, books and TV appearances. He’s always doling out useful information, in return for which we say, “There goes a guy who knows what he’s talking about. I could do worse than to take his advice.”

You can make yourself known as a trusted advisor too, by establishing your expertise in your field to a wide audience. Write articles, blog posts, and direct-mail or email pieces that solve common problems or answer common questions pertaining to your field (or hire a ghostwriter to translate your diamonds in the rough into polished gems). Hand out information. Help people. Add value.

Who will we trust first — a salesman who sends us generic monthly offers, or one who provides us with valuable insights and helpful tips on a regular basis? Which one is more likely to become our go-to guy when the time is right to do business?

You are a problem solver. Something about what you do brings people relief and makes their lives better. So share your gifts with the world — and receive a world of gifts.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.”

When you hear that phrase issuing forth from your radio or TV, you can be sure of a couple of things. First, the President is about to speak. Second, on any channel you switch to, any station you can tune in, in any market, in any part of the nation — the President is about to speak. The same goes for any big national or international breaking news. Whatever channel you’re watching or listening to, the message will be the same.

What happens as a result? We all the get same information, at the same time. A few different flavors of it, perhaps, depending on the individual source, but the same essential statement comes over the airwaves. Good news or bad, welcome or not, we’re all clued into the same data in more or less the same way.

Imagine what would happen if, instead of everyone experiencing the same live press conference, different audiences got totally different pre-recorded statements, all emphasizing different points and delivered in different tones. In the end, no one would know the whole story. Chaos.

So why do we let it happen in our marketing?

You’ve seen this phenomenon yourself. A company’s website conveys a slightly different marketing message than its Facebook page, which conveys a different message than its official blog, which conveys a slightly different message than its Twitter campaign, et cetera. The disconnect can be as subtle as a web page that expresses one feeling visually and another feeling verbally. The resulting contradictory statements tend to cancel each other out, leaving the impression that nothing much has been expressed at all, or at least not in a way that made an impact.

Marketing is all about making an impact on the emotions and decision-making triggers of your audience. But emotional impact, like physical impact, depends on congruent, massive action. You can’t knock somebody out by punching them with five fingers, one at a time — you have to curl all five into a fist and throw them all at once. A marketing campaign must use the same unity of action across all its “fingers” — the many channels, spread across many media, that project a company’s brand. Not “brands.” Brand. Yes, little variations add freshness and help you get the most out of each channel’s individual strengths, but across all channels the core message must prevail.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

“Hi, honey. Look what I got free at the checkout. It’s a Chef’s Pal! It’s a dicer-grater-peeler all in one! Never needs sharpening, dishwasher safe!”

If that line sounds like an ad, well, it is. It’s also part of a real-life conversation — or so it seems to Truman.

In the film The Truman Show, Jim Carrey plays a man whose life is completely enmeshed in television. The school he attended, the woman he married, the job he goes to every day, the friends he’s hung around with since childhood — they’re all faked. The truth, hidden from him since birth, is that Truman’s life is a reality-TV show. His entire hometown is a collection of sets, props, actors and extras, all covered by armies of unseen cameras. Even the sky overhead is nothing but a blue dome.

Truman suspects something is up — literally, in the case of a lamp-powered “star” that accidentally drops from the “sky” and almost decapitates him. He wants answers, but of course the actors paid to be his wife and best friend aren’t helping — at least not until he notices an odd trait in his wife’s behavior. She seems determined to soothe his worries with various foods, drinks, or consumer products, blurting out excited pitches for these products almost at random. Carrey finally can’t take it anymore and yells, “Who are you talking to??”

These odd little inserted sales pitches take their cue from the old live commercials of TV’s Golden Age, when ads for the show’s sponsor were cleverly (or not-so-cleverly) worked into the scripts: “Bob, I know your wife’s death has got you down. Here, have a cigarette. You’ll really like these new Salems — they’re filter-tipped for a smoother, more satisfying smoke.”

Believe it or not, people still use this ham-handed marketing technique. How many times have you gotten interested in an informational article, only to realize before the end that it’s just a sales pitch for a product or service? Ever feel gratified to the author for that little walk down the primrose path? Or were you more likely to want that last few minutes of your life back?

Context matters in marketing. So does honesty. If you’re selling something, sell it, and make it clear to us that you’re selling it. Otherwise, any good will you’ve bought from us toward the beginning of that “special report” or “informative study” will just turn to hard feelings by the end when we realize we’ve been had. Sure, you’ll catch a few enthralled buyers, but keep in mind that bad impressions make more waves than good ones.

Don’t make your readers feel the betrayal, hurt, and anger Truman feels when he touches the sky and realizes it’s a backdrop.

1954 was Benjy Stone’s favorite year, as Benjy (Mark Linn-Baker) informs us in the opening narration of this film. A rookie writer for King Kaiser’s live comedy/variety show, he gets an assignment to watch over the latest weekly guest, former big-screen swashbuckler and ladies’ man Alan Swann (Peter O’Toole), to ensure that the besotted star can make it through the week of rehearsals sober enough to manage the live broadcast.

This is easier said than done, but not entirely for the expected reasons. Of course Alan Swann misbehaves predictably, leading Benjy through a boozy roller-coaster week, but underneath the bravado lurk crippling fears and insecurities. For one thing, he isn’t “Alan Swann” at all — he’s Clarence Duffy, a working-class boy who got a few lucky breaks and assumed a persona to perpetuate the hoax into fame and fortune. The glittering lifestyle swept him away, alienating him from his family to the point where he’s afraid to even speak to his daughter.

In light of this character crisis, we shouldn’t be too surprised when he begs off the performance. He can’t be Alan Swann to those millions of viewers watching live. He can’t make the lie work away from the forgiving atmosphere of a movie studio. “I’m not an actor, I’m a movie star!” he screams in terror.

But he’s forgotten something. To those millions of people who idolized him on those movie screens for so many years, he is Alan Swann, whether he himself believes it or not. Actor or not, he has created a living, breathing character, literally giving the performance of a lifetime in the process. As Benjy reminds him, “Nobody’s that good an actor!”

So when paid ruffians interrupt the live performance to beat up King Kaiser in mid-skit, who should come to the rescue but Alan Swann, swinging in on a cable like the movie swashbuckler of old. Perception hasn’t become reality, because it always was the reality, as Swann now understands.

That’s true you and your brand as well. Your audience knows only what it perceives. When you create a brand and project it to a mass audience, you open a window into a new little sliver of reality. Never mind that you’re secretly sweating bullets about whether your latest product will tank — as far as your readers are concerned, it’s the most exciting thing since the proverbial sliced bread.

But perception can also work against you. If you communicate your marketing message like an amateur, then that’s the persona you’ve created for all the world to see. If your website is slapdash, your marketing copy dry or weak, your brand identity confusing or nonexistent, then you’ve identified yourself as Clarence Duffy, not Alan Swann. And there’s no virtue in that level of “truth,” because you’re Alan Swann too!

Put your best self into your marketing — and have your own favorite year.

Lights up. The scene is a plush office in a bustling metropolis. A large man in a silk suit buzzes a younger, leaner, more nervous-looking man into his office. They greet each other and exchange a few minutes of small talk about the national industry trends, the latest headlines, the word on the street. The bigger man asks the smaller man to have a seat, then perches on the edge of his desk and speaks in apologetic tones to the smaller man about the company’s current challenges before dropping the reason he’s called the fellow in.

The smaller man yells, “What do you mean, I’m fired?”

Curtain. End of scene — or is it the beginning?

Yes, the opening paragraph sets a tone — it prepares the audience for a looming crisis in the conversation, gives us background information, and so on. A playwright or novelist could, in fact, draw that scene out for several minutes or pages to build suspense, especially if the audience has an idea of what’s coming to the poor dope in the chair.

Or we could do this:

Lights up. “What do you mean, I’m fired?”

Which opening gets our attention faster and propels us into the scene more forcefully?

One of the most useful things my playwriting instructors used to harp about was to “start in the middle.” Atmosphere and exposition have their uses, but the story doesn’t start until something happens.

Marketing writing sometimes suffers from this kind of foot dragging. I think we have it drilled into us when we’re writing those five-paragraph essays in school: “I will now talk about this, and I will support my thesis with these paragraphs, and in summary here’s my conclusion.” It’s linear, it’s clear, and it’s easy to grade. But it’s also predictable, and if you always know what’s coming next in a marketing piece, you might as well stop reading it and get back to work.

It’s fun to tease readers that something big is coming soon if they’ll just be patient and bear with you, but they may not feel like waiting for the drum roll. If your readers or website visitors aren’t sticking around for the exciting part, try dropping them right into the exciting part instead. Save the boring part for — well, nothing, actually. Boring doesn’t belong in marketing, so throw the boring part out. Fill your audience in on the details after you’ve hooked them, because without the hook, I guarantee you the details won’t matter.

Curtain.

Well, here we are. 2010 has arrived, and many business owners will take great delight in kicking 2009 to the curb. Of course it’s just a number, not a magic spell for success. But perception is a form of magic, isn’t it? Or rather, let’s call it a self-fulfilling prophecy — businesses want and expect better things, so they grow more confident, take more chances, and invest new energy into their branding and marketing strategies. Their competitors resolve to keep up, so they turbo-charge their business efforts to match. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Just as fear and negativity can make a bad market even worse, so may positive energy and ambition spark good developments. A new year tends to reset the clock, psychologically speaking. That’s why I’m determined to create new products and services and grow my writing business this year.

How about you?

Take a moment to reflect on the following questions:

Is your brand still relevant? Are you still saying what your customers need and want to hear? Has your business model or philosophy changed in the past year, or do you want to change it going forward?

Are you taking full advantage of your opportunities? Have you constructed a sound online brand presence? Are you using the many tools available to businesses nowadays such as Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, and other social media applications?

Do you refresh your marketing content regularly? Staying in front of your target market on a regular basis means putting out a constant stream of new and useful information.

Are you networked? Do you interact with other businesspeople regularly in chambers, networking groups, mixers, and association meetings? Have you developed mutually beneficial relationships with potential clients and referral partners, and if so, do you have a consistent plan for maintaining them?

We all need to remind ourselves of these basic marketing practices from time to time, and I can think of no better time than right now. Let’s make the new year something really new!

Whose chocolate chip cookies would you rather try — a knight in shining armor’s, a brilliant scientist’s, a chic supermodel’s, a super-handy master carpenter’s, or a kindly grandma’s?

All of these archetypes send out positive vibes, but setting aside the question of which person we’d rather have offering us chocolate chip cookies, most of us would probably assume that among this cast of characters, granny’s the one who makes the goodies. We trust Granny with that task. It’s a stereotype, sure, but we buy into it. If we were shopping for the most seductive perfume, on the other hand, it’s probably fair to say that even the kindliest grandma will lose ground to the chic supermodel. It’s a matter of applying the right “face” to the right subject.

If you own a bakery, you might have the fabulous good fortune of a real-life smiling mother or grandmother type handing out lots of sweets to your customers (in exchange for lots of money). If you’re a cosmetics store, you may have elegant salespeople gliding from section to section, at least, celebrity models’ pictures gazing longingly over the perfume stand or lipstick aisle. But what if your “salesperson” is your website?

Just as your commercial spokesperson, sales rep, or brand icon represents the face of your company, so must your 24-hour, 365-day virtual storefront. So the question is, what face should it have?

Think about it from the customer end. If you needed, say, a repair service, who would you choose? A happy-go-lucky guy with a bag of tools? A local pro with a 30-year track record and plenty of advice on how to maintain the stuff once he fixes it? A national corporation with a slick warrantee and guaranteed delivery times?

The truth is that any one of these three images might work, depending on the nature of the problem (Simple? Complex? Urgent?) and your own personal priorities (Speedy turnaround? Sheer skill? Friendliest folks?). So the ideal persona for your online brand reflects your target audience, which means it’s always worthwhile to ask yourself — if your website were a person selling your stuff to your ideal customer, what type of person would truly dazzle that customer? How would that character look? What would that character say, and in what tone of voice? Who is your website?

Answer that question for yourself. Then express it to your audience. And get ready to sell some cookies.

Once upon a time, a consultant contacted me about possibly ghostwriting some informative articles that he could post online to display his expertise in his subject. He explained that this would be a relatively easy job. “All we really have to do is take some existing articles we like and change the verbiage a little so we can post them as ours.”

Well, no. Apart from the (I hope) obvious ethical considerations of simply dressing up someone else’s article and sticking your name on it without his permission, a generic article doesn’t do you much good. This is the Internet era. We have online articles coming out of our ears. Your readers don’t want more anonymous information — they want your information.

Here are a few tips for promoting your expertise:

Write your article. Not someone else’s, and especially not everyone else’s. You can create a piece that works for a general audience and still bears your individual stamp. that’s the point of posting an expert article — you’re the expert.

Sure, being the expert means reporting general industry trends and observations, but it also means interpreting them for your readers. I don’t need a financial expert, for instance, to relay the latest stock reports or unemployment numbers — I can get those myself from Google or Yahoo or wherever. What I do need, since I’m not an expert in that field, is my trusted advisor telling me what, in his opinion, it all means to me.

When I have industry experts in various fields explaining things to me in language I can understand, and advising me on how to respond to this information, I’m getting the direct benefit of these advisors’ expertise, and I begin to rely on them for all my needs in those areas.

And the expert — that’s you — gets more business.

Keep it short. If you’re boiling a thorny topic down into something understandable, condense it into the least we need to know. Give us a few good pointers, a brief rundown, or ask some leading questions to get us thinking in the right direction. If we need more information, we can contact you. That’s the the whole point of marketing — getting that phone call.

Brand yourself. There’s no point in writing an expert article if a first-time reader has no idea who the expert is. Always include a sentence or two about yourself in a little blurb underneath the article (most web-based article directories require this before they’ll post the article) and include your company email address or website link. Make it easy for the reader, once he’s dazzled by your insight into his problem or question, to click a link and start a conversation that might lead to business.

Which reminds me….

______________________________

WILLIAM REYNOLDS is a freelance marketing copywriter specializing in website content, print marketing copy, and radio/TV/video scripts for businesses. He can be reached through his website, www.reynoldswriting.com.