Sometimes people confuse "subtlety" and "aesthetics." or "subtlety" and "attention to detail".

Art can be subtle. Marketing can't be, at least in getting its message across.

The best marketing pays enormous attention to detail. Nevertheless, messages are shouted more than whispered. Whispers are easily drowned out.

Bang them over the head, don't sort of hint at what you want to say. Got it? They may not get it anyway, even after you've repeated it a hundred times. At least you'll give yourself a chance.

There is no such thing as "subliminal messages" despite the volume of material that's been written on the subject, including a bestselling book, "The Hidden Persuaders" (Vance Packard) dating all the way back to the Stone Ages - 1957.

Yes, your message is carried by a lot more than the copy and the imagery. Choice of color scheme, shapes, fonts, the very medium in which you place your marketing communications, all contribute or detract from the message.

To cite another ancient text "The Medium Is The Message" (Marshall McLuhan, 1964) is an exaggeration. The medium does contribute to the message.

So.

DON'T BE SUBTLE.

"Marketing" and "Subtle" are two words that shouldn't appear in the same sentence.

Posted by Richard R. Byrd at 07:32 AM | Permalink

It's hard to believe. Images so rich and beautiful, created through mathematics. Such beauty built into the very fabric of the universe.

Designers, take inspiration from the natural world.

(click on image to see more)

Posted by Richard R. Byrd at 09:30 AM | Permalink

Happy Thanksgiving everybody.

I hope and trust you have much to be thankful for.

May we all have even oh so much more to be thankful for next year.

Posted by Richard R. Byrd at 01:39 PM | Permalink

In a way this is a phony dichotomy. Good art - what in the advertising world is called "production values" - is very important to the effectiveness of most marketing.

BUT I can't stress enough that art is there to SERVE marketing. Art Gone Wild wins Cleos (Ad Industry awards) and loses business for their clients and accounts for agencies. This is called The Curse of the Cleo.

Encourage designers to knock your eyes out with their artistic conceptions and execution. But then step back and see if it communicates or confuses.

Posted by Richard R. Byrd at 06:07 AM | Permalink

Posted by Richard R. Byrd at 10:06 AM | Permalink

Perhaps there is no greater source of friction amongst co-workers than the shared lunchroom facilities (click on picture for more examples)....

Posted by Richard R. Byrd at 10:57 AM | Permalink

Good marketing is partly about similarities.

If you are TOO different, too unique, too out there, you get tuned out. You get blank stares, incomprehension.

We see this in odd website navigation schemes. People just confuse and wander off.

Your company, products or services need to be unique. But not TOO unique.

How many Tuckers, with the single headlight, were sold? Less than 100.

Think about it.

Posted by Richard R. Byrd at 04:11 AM | Permalink

Good marketing is mostly about differences.

The famous UCA (Unique Competitive Advantage) or USP (Unique Selling Proposition) are what makes you, your product or service DIFFERENT (and valuable).

Good marketing differentiates publics. It's called market segmentation. How do all the people out there split up - by age, income, geography and so on - and which of them are the best prospects? How do you best approach different publics?

Slogans, logos, color schemes, all are as much about differentiating as anything else. The FIRST thing we do in designing a print ad is to look at the context / competition. For example, we recently designed a Yellow Pages ad for a dentist. When we examined other ads in last year's book, they were all red and blue. So our ad is green.

If you can't differentiate, you can't get noticed.

Think about it.

Posted by Richard R. Byrd at 04:05 AM | Permalink

This is only half serious but it makes totally valid points on design considerations.

The design of pro football team helmets.

(click on picture to go to article).

Posted by Richard R. Byrd at 10:26 AM | Permalink

If Anti-Virus software had been around in the days of Troy....

Posted by Richard R. Byrd at 08:14 AM | Permalink

Amazing what REALLY goes on when a drop hits surface....

Posted by Richard R. Byrd at 06:20 AM | Permalink

The best statement answer ever, about marketing during a recession. Sergio Zyman in "The End of Marketing as We Know it":

"When a market, or an economy, goes into a tailspin, the first thing you should do is resist the temptation to cut spending. Not only should you keep spending in times of turmoil in order to keep from losing customers, but you should also realize that times of turmoil are great growth opportunities.

"For one thing, when people are confused and don't know what to think, it's a great time for you to tell them. For another, most of your competitors will probably cut spending when things are unsettled, and that gives you the chance to increase your market share."

Listen to the man. He speaks Truth.

Posted by Richard R. Byrd at 07:47 AM | Permalink

Usually, after a while, a marketing campaign becomes less and less effective.

When that's been going on long enough to clearly establish a trend, it becomes essential to DO SOMETHING before it really crashes and seriously affects sales.

Unfortunately the first tendency is often to decide that the market is saturated. Meaning that everyone has heard of your product and everyone who would buy it, already is buying or has bought it.

It's almost never true. In fact, in my years in marketing and the business world, I've never yet seen it true.

So what could be going on?

1. Maybe your campaign has run so long that people turn it off mentally. They see the ad or the commercial start to run and they go, "oh yeah, that." Time to develop new ads.

2. Perhaps the consuming public has shifted. Maybe what was the chief appeal which worked for years is no longer what's chief in their mind. They care less and less about how much it costs and more and more about how fast you answer the phone. A good survey will find out.

3. Maybe competition has gotten energetic and is stealing market share. It is always wise to pay attention to what your competition is up to. Sometimes they get clever.

4. Sometimes the marketing channel you are using goes out of fashion. One company's buying public wasn't reading industry magazines any more. So of course magazine ads were working less and less well.

This has been happening with the Yellow Pages over the last few years, in almost every type of business. Again, a survey will find it out.

There can be other explanations. The point is that "The Market is Saturated" isn't an explanation. It's an excuse. So when you see your marketing being less and less effective - poorer and poorer ROI (Return on Investment) - the first thing to do is NOT to decide what is happening.

The first thing to do is LOOK. Investigate. Research. Survey.

Find Out.

THEN you can act intelligently.

Posted by Richard R. Byrd at 08:48 AM | Permalink

Sales is retail (one-at-a-time) selling.

Marketing is wholesale (en masse) selling.

Posted by Richard R. Byrd at 07:10 AM | Permalink

People would never buy a $2000 used car thinking they were getting something "just as good as a new Lexus."

They'd never buy a $25 clock radio at Wal-Mart thinking they were getting the equal of a $15,000 Bang & Olufsen system.

No one would spend $150 on a painting made in China, figuring it was the investment equivalent of an original Picasso.

What's my point? People do this sort of thing every day in purchasing websites.

Websites built on $50 templates, $39.95 off-the-shelf Content Management Systems, made in India for $395, or with do-it-yourself programs are NOT the equal of a custom designed, professionally built website. Not for the search engines and not for the visitor experience.

So why do people do it? I believe this is the fault of marketers themselves.

Most businessmen have spent big bucks repeatedly for websites (or other marketing services) that were going to be the greatest thing since sliced bread and instead turned out to be more like moldy crusts. A big disappointment to say the least. Under-performers, delivered late and over-budget.

Marketing companies for decades have carefully explained to their clients that there is no way to measure the effectiveness of what they do.

Is it any wonder that people rebel? If you're going to waste money, it might as well be a small amount. Maybe you'll get lucky. Is it any wonder, given the abysmal track record of most marketers, that people take action into their own hands? They can't do any worse!

I'm not actually trying to convince you NOT to purchase our services.

There IS such as thing as PROFESSIONAL marketing.

The problem is telling when you've found it.

Unlike most industries, there's no easy simple way to tell.

If you go to a Lexus dealer, and buy a vehicle with 0 miles on the odometer, with Lexus on the nameplate, you know you are going to be getting a reliable, well-engineered prestige car.

If you buy World Series tickets from Ticketmaster, you know you won't be turned away at the ballpark because your tickets are fake.

This is a problem peculiar to service professions. How do you know if a lawyer is a good one? An accountant or a financial adviser.

Oh yeah, most financial advisers turned out to be incompetent.

Do what you have to, to establish you are dealing with competent, professional marketers.

THERE IS SUCH A THING AS PROFESSIONAL MARKETING.

IT DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

Posted by Richard R. Byrd at 05:52 AM | Permalink

I've repeatedly commented on the differences between marketing for large and small companies.

Here's one: large corporations can afford to waste millions of dollars on a failed marketing campaign. They can even deliberately launch, and promote with tens of millions of dollars, a new product with the intention of it failing. Sergio Zyman, formerly head of marketing for Coke, famous claims they did that with Tab Clear.

Small businessmen need their marketing to work. Every dollar is precious. More importantly, the business that doesn't materialize when a marketing campaign fails, can be the difference between life and death for a company, or between prosperity and hanging on by a thread.

Most marketing vendors DON'T deliver, or succeed only intermittently. They survive, even flourish based on a few notable successes, or on smoke and mirrors.

Is it any wonder that small businessmen are chronically frustrated and suspicious at any marketing company or scheme that comes their way?

And yet, you keep trying, don't you.

Because one thing successful small businessmen know: There is no choice. You HAVE to market.

And of course, that is why this blog (and my upcoming book), is called "Market or Die".

Posted by Richard R. Byrd at 08:01 AM | Permalink

Posted by Richard R. Byrd at 07:40 AM | Permalink

I've commented on the difficulty of surveying for pricing. One reason for that is pricing is not an absolute.

The only measure of value for a product or service is what someone is willing to pay for it. If you can change that, you can charge more.

It is one of the major jobs of marketing (and PR) to make people willing to spend more money for the same product or service.

Why do people pay $100 for a pair of designer jeans? Is the fabric so much better than a $20 pair you buy in Wal-Mart?

Why do flacks (Publicists) work their tails off to get your book on Oprah or Madonna to wear your hats? It isn't just the exposure. People will pay more for a product endorsed or used by a celebrity.

The easiest way to increase your bottom line is to raise your prices without reducing your sales volume.

"Easy?" you say. "We're in a recession!"

So What.

Get clever.

In almost every industry and business, there are opportunities being missed to enhance the value of products and services in the eyes of the prospective buyer.

Think about it.

Posted by Richard R. Byrd at 06:15 AM | Permalink

The purpose of marketing according to Sergio Zyman, marketing guru:

"helps everybody sell more stuff to more people, more often, so they can make more money".

Now is that clear?

Posted by Richard R. Byrd at 09:52 AM | Permalink

Just finished reading Groundswell, highly recommended book on using social networking technologies in marketing, publicity and promotion.

Written by two employees at Forrester Research, they said this in their acknowledgments:

We're very glad to have come to the end of this project as close friends, rather than, say, having strangled each other.

Having conducted many mediations between business partners, I can only say "amen!"

Posted by Richard R. Byrd at 07:47 AM | Permalink

In many businesses, the most neglected marketing resource is their own loyal customers.

I've written recently about referrals and word-of-mouth. But there are many non-traditional ways to utilize your customer base to help spread the word.

Here's one example. If you established a forum as part of your website, and let your customers as well as others post to it, you might:

1. Improve your search engine rankings because of the large quantity of content added to the site.

2. Your customers may evangelize about your products or customer service - building third party trust.

3. They may tell you about problems or desirable improvements.

4. Prospective customers might find answers to more of their questions, questions you may never have thought of or haven't had time to address with your website.

All this without you having to lift a finger, if the system is well-designed.

There are other ways to utilize them too. Software companies and consultants often sponsor webinars run by their clients. It doesn't get better than that.

This is worth thinking about. Not all ways to utilize a customer base, make sense for all businesses. But they do more often than you might think.

My recent post about social network marketing describes a useful way to think about this subject.

When this works, it can be huge.

Posted by Richard R. Byrd at 06:57 AM | Permalink

This information has moved to http://www.fastf.com/website-home-pages.htm

Posted by Richard R. Byrd at 12:14 PM | Permalink

From advertising for the game "Battleship." Blow up of a corner of the image below. From a kinder, gentler time when war was Man's Work (even if it was a game) and Woman's Place Was In The Kitchen (Yes, ladies, I'm being sarcastic).

Posted by Richard R. Byrd at 09:46 AM | Permalink

This picture gives a great perspective on the biggest economic factors on the planet. You may be surprised (click to see larger size pic)....

Posted by Richard R. Byrd at 08:32 AM | Permalink