Happiness

Someone said this to me the other day and I thought it was appropriate to consider in all areas of life:

"Happiness doesn't come and go in our lives. What comes and goes is our awareness of happiness."

Be Bold

"Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore."
Andre Gide, French writer

I love this image of innovation. It is often as scary as it is exciting, but it is vital to growing your business. Be creative. Be resourceful. Be bold.

Just make sure your boat will float in deeper waters.

What Great Brands Do -- Part II

I love it when companies know exactly what their brands are and support those brands by communicating with candor. Even when under attack by the competition, great brands stay strong and remain true to their brand promise. Being candid deflates the pressure, and in fact, admitting a negative can often bring about a positive result.

One of my favorite examples was years ago when Procter & Gamble launched Scope into the mouthwash market. At the time Listerine dominated the market, but its one vulnerable spot was it's antiseptic smell and taste. Scope attacked with two words: "medicine breath." They positioned their new product as a sweet tasting mouthwash. Listerine responded with candor, deflating the pressure. Yep, that's right, it's "the taste you hate, twice a day." Our mouthwash might not be the most delicious, but delicious is not our goal. Our main goal is fresh breath. And, fresh breath is exactly what you will get because that is the promise of our brand.

There are many recent examples of brands trying to reposition the competition: PC vs. Mac, Burger King vs. McDonalds, Coke vs. Pepsi, Budweiser vs. Miller Lite, Dominos vs. Subway, and the list could go on and on. The brands that remain the strongest over time (and those that produce the cleverest ads) are those who offer consistent messaging that defines the true strengths of their product, service or company.

What Great Brands Do

The textbook definition of a brand is: the promise an organization makes to its customer, its employees and other key stakeholders. A brand communicates the essence, character and purpose of a company. Who they are…what they do…and why they do it. But, what does all of that really mean?

I like to think of a brand as the company’s story. Stories engage our hearts and minds. Corporate positioning and key message development isn’t engaging to the customer, but when we can tell our story effectively THAT is what gets the customer’s attention. In today’s age of information overload, most of us are already flooded with more messages than we can process and understand. How can you make your story stand out?

A great brand is hard to find. To build a great brand, you first have to know yourself and be consistent with who you really are. To understand who you really are and the true value you bring to customers, you have to go out and talk to your customers. Find out what they value about your product, why they do business with your company. Remember, once in a while the key to understanding “who you are” is understanding “who you are not.”

The Six "Cs" of Effective Web Writing

You want your website to engage your visitors and drive them to take action. We, as your customers, want to find the information we need in a logical place. We want it to make sense, and maybe even entertain us a little bit. The right words organized in the right way will make all the difference in the world. Ask yourself these six questions to determine if your online content will convince us to stick around or send us searching for new information.

Is it Compelling?
The first think you need to do is grab our attention and never let go. Make sure you know what your audience wants. Understand our challenges. Understand why we have those challenges. Realize what is most important to us. And then, make THAT information easily accessible on your website.

Is it Clear?
What good is a beautifully designed website unless you get your message across? If we have to expend too much mental energy to understand your language, you've already lost us. No jargon. No vague corporate speak. We want a friendly, engaging style...as if you know a human being is reading your content.

Is it Concise?
While extra content (a.k.a. fluff) is annoying in print, it's fatal on the Web. Remember, most of us are scanning your site; we're not reading at all. Cut out all but the most important information. By that, I mean most important to us, not to you.

Is it Complete?
Although we want messages to be consise, we also want them to be complete. This is where it gets tricky and where you need to go back to the "compelling" question. Understand what type and how much information your ideal customer needs to take action. Be proactive and answer the questions you know they are going to have; show us how you can solve our problems and deliver the outcomes we want.

Is it Correct?
Enough said.

Who Cares?
A biggie. Make sure your compelling, clear, concise, complete and correct web content is designed specifically for your target audience. You can't be everything to everyone, but you can be sure that your website hits the mark for your most important visitors -- your target customers.

FreeRice.com

Here's a great way to increase your vocabulary and help someone in need at the same time. According to the United Nations, approximately 25,000 people die each day from hunger or hunger-related causes. At http://www.freerice.com/, you can play a word definition game to "earn" rice donations. For every word you define correctly, FreeRice donates 20 grains of rice through the UN food program.

According to Snopes.com, it's all legit:

FreeRice.com is the creation of 49-year-old American computer programmer John Breen, and is the sister site of Poverty.com, launched in January 2007 with a counter showing one person dying from hunger every 3.5 seconds.

As to who foots the bill for the food being donated, the site says: "The rice is paid for by the advertisers whose names you see on the bottom of your vocabulary screen." As more people play the game, the site racks up more advertising revenue, which in turn is converted into food donations for the hungry.

Since its inception in October 2007, FreeRice has generated enough rice to feed more than two million people. And, if vocabulary isn't your thing...don't worry. You can also earn rice by answering questions correctly in other subjects like art, chemistry, geography, languages, and math.

Who could ask for an easier way to get smarter?

Targets vs. Markets

I want to talk about that little section of the marketing communications plan called Target Audience. It's an often overlooked, but vital component of the plan. So often people want their target audience to be: everybody. Or, they want to define their audience too broadly. As in...our target audience is women, age 21-79, with a pulse. This is not a target. It's a market.

It can be easy to confuse targets with markets. The temptation is to define your customer so broadly that it covers the entire market opportunity. The challenge is to increase your success by defining the best prospects. If I took you to a bar and told you to get a date in five minutes, you could probably do it. However, chances are you wouldn't be happy with the results. The time you take to research your audience, understand who they are, and identify your target customers is well worth the investment.

Sure, you can spend a lot of money and communicate to "everybody." You can send e-mails to potential customers about products they will never use. You can send press releases to reporters on topics about which they never write. You can put completely useless information in the employee newsletter. Just remember, the more irrelevant marketing messages you send to customers, the more "junk" you send to reporters, the more "fluff" you put in employee communications...the more credibility you will lose with your audience.

Whether they are customers, employees, investors, vendors, or the media, your target audience wants to know that you have taken the time to understand what makes them tick: their needs, their challenges, and their motivations. When you define your audience as a "target" instead of a "market" this becomes much easier to do.