What, exactly, is marketing?

I was a panelist at a writers’ conference marketing seminar when someone tossed that question at me. I gazed at the sea of 300+ faces and my mind went utterly blank.

“Uh…marketing is all the stuff you do to help you sell your product or services,” I stammered.

Not an academy award-winning performance by any standards. And the marketing theorists would shoot me for being so simplistic. But I’m a strong believer that simpler is better, so let’s set aside the theoretical jargon and talk trash.

“All the stuff.” What does that include? Lots of stuff, as it happens, but let’s home in on just one:

Focus on your customer. If you forget everything else, remember to always, always, always focus on your customer.

• What does your customer need? Want?
• What will delight your customer?
• What will surprise him or her?

If you think in terms of what’s going to make your customer happy (and not what you can get out of selling your product), the rest of the stuff tends to fall into place.

An interesting article in Christianity Today points out the importance of focusing on the customer. The article’s title introduces the customer-orientation premise:

“How to Save the Christian Bookstore (Hint: Stop making it so religious).”

What? A non-religious, religious bookstore? Do tell!

Christian bookstores that are thriving are connecting with their customers by becoming “third places”—inviting, comfortable alternatives to home and the workplace.

A bookstore in Bentonville, Arkansas, has 10 TV screens that loop skateboard and snowboard videos with Christian themes, offers free wi-fi and a coffee and smoothie bar. Not only that, the store has a “build your own board” area and sells custom skateboard parts.

Sure, the store sells Bibles, books, and music. But the owner says, “The core is the ministry—changing lives. SKIA is where you can come and be ministered to when the church is closed.”

Focus on your customer.

A California-based Christian bookstore chain caters to the 18- to 30-year-old crowd, selling alternative clothing at its retail stores, as well as wholesale and via the Internet. The stores are located in prime-time teenage hangoutville: malls.

Focus on your customer.

Where’s your marketing focus? Are you obsessed with dreaming up a great brand tagline that’s sure to “wow” your customers? Or are you most concerned with the customers themselves, and their needs?

Focus on your customer, and the other stuff will fall into place. In the next post, we’ll explore more of the “other stuff.”

Source: Crosby, Cindy, “How to Save the Christian Bookstore,” Christianity Today magazine, April 2008.

Also in this series:

• 10 Marketing Lessons from a 12-year-old Entrepreneur
• What’s Your Passion?
• 5 Tips for Becoming an Expert at Your Craft
• 5 Ways to Stay Motivated
• Get Them in Your Gravity Well
• Grass Roots Marketing
• What is Your Product Worth?

Tags: customer service, HeBlogsSheBlogs.com, marketing lessons

What is your product worth?

The simple answer: Whatever someone will pay.

The complex answer: The Goldilocks’ price. Not too much, not too little.

When blue jeans were first introduced in Japan the manufacturers wanted to create a market. So they priced the jeans at $5.00 a pair. They were a bargain. They didn’t sell. They took them off the market for a time then reintroduced the jeans at $25.00 a pair. They sold out.The buyers figured at $5 the jeans weren’t worth much. But if they were $25 a pair they must be a must-have item.

You’ve heard the cliché, perception is reality. It’s often true, especially in marketing. Most people understand private labels. Stores contract with a supplier to have a product manufactured, then put their own name on the packing.

Let’s use frozen vegetables, and the Safeway chain of grocery stores as an example. Safeway has their own brand of frozen corn, peas, carrots, etc. Next to Safeway’s brand are the national brands. Which cost more? The national brands, of course. Is the corn in Safeway’s bag or can identical to the corn in the national brand’s bags? Of course. Do the people handing out extra money for the national brand think the national brand’s corn is better? Of course. Is it better? Of course not.

But that’s marketing. That’s figuring out what your product is worth. Some people are willing to pay for the brand name on the packaging.

There isn’t time to go into all the complexities of how to figure out exactly what your price point should be. But to start ask these questions:

Who is my target? Upscale? Then I can charge more. The masses? I’ll need to charge less.

What do people think my product is worth? Take a survey. Ask friends, neighbors, people waiting at the bus stop. Set your price and start selling. The market will quickly tell you with real dollars what your product is worth.

Daniel figured it out, so can you.

Also in this series:

• 10 Marketing Lessons from a 12-year-old Entrepreneur
• What’s Your Passion?
• 5 Tips for Becoming an Expert at Your Craft
• 5 Ways to Stay Motivated
• Get Them in Your Gravity Well
• Grass Roots Marketing

Tags: HeBlogsSheBlogs.com, marketing lessons, price points

In her monthly column, Working Mother magazine’s CEO, Carol Evans, explains how challenging it was to build a virtual community where the magazine’s readers could connect—until they started blogging.

At workingmother.com, they added a MomBlog, where they set up working moms with their own blog so they can share stories, tips, and advice.

Carol’s blogging, too (sporadically). She writes:

I thought blogging was going to be another layer of work on top of everything else. But it doesn’t feel that way. It feels like I’m sharing with a friend…

…I’m blogging a lot right now, too. I wake up in the morning and have this urgent need to say something to you through the ether. Then I find out about your needs and ideas through your blogs.

I checked Carol’s CEO Mom blog to see what her definition of “blogging a lot” is. Turns out her blog hasn’t been updated since March 31. Tut, tut, Carol! You have to update your blog more than once a month or so if you want people to keep reading it.

To give her credit, Carol is a very busy woman. She probably wrote her April column in January, when she did manage to write five blog posts. And the MomBlogs area of the site includes a dozen other momblogs that have been updated recently.

While Carol’s time-crunch appears to have dampened her initial enthusiasm about posting “a lot,” Carol appears to “get” it. She understands that:

• Businesses need to focus on building a healthy virtual community with their customers.
• Blogging is a convenient means to build that community.
• Blogging teaches business owners a great deal about the needs and interests of their customers.
• Blogging shouldn’t feel like work; it should be fun. Whether the muse beckons every day or every other month, bloggers respond to the urge to blog in the same way that they’d respond to the urge for, say, a giant bowl of double chocolate chunk ice cream. Which I have a hankering for right now!

Also in this series:

• Doggone Bloggy: Glenn Close Starts ‘Lively Licks’ Blog

? Grab this Headline Animator

Tags: Blogging, Carol Evans, HeBlogsSheBlogs.com, MomBlog, virtual communities, Working Mother magagzine

Blogs have gone to the dogs. Literally.

Actress Glenn Close, who launched a pet supply business called fetchdog in October 2007, created the Lively Licks blog.

On Lively Licks, Glenn interviews celebs such as Martha Stewart, Debra Messing, and Ted Danson about their dogs. She also responds to reader questions about dog care in a “Dear Abby-esque” manner. If you want to learn more about dog smell, dog hair, and dog sleep issues, Glenn has the answers!

Glenn’s blog is fully integrated into her fetchdog Website, and contains handy links for subscribing via e-mail or RSS feed. An attractive photo banner pictures her with her dogs, Jake and Bill. My only critique is that the type size on the blog is too tiny for my getting-older eyes.

Glenn is going to strike gold by enhancing her Website with a blog. Dog lovers, Glenn Close fans, and curiosity seekers alike will check out her blog, maybe leave a comment, and feel a part of the doggone community. Of course they’ll be tempted to purchase a $145 Crypton couch cover for their pampered pet. Or maybe an $8 tug toy.

This is the first article in a continuing series that examines how blogs are transforming the way we do business.

Next up: a magazine editor who recently “converted” from traditional publishing to blogging.

Tags: Blogging, fetchdog, Glenn Close, HeBlogsSheBlogs.com, Lively Licks blog

Lesson # 4 in Daniel Franklin’s 10 Marketing Lessons is obvious, but it’s often overlooked: Tell everyone about your product. Everyone. Everyone. Everyone! (Yes, I’m repeating myself at the risk of being crude—thank you very much Paul Simon.)

People or companies wanting to promote themselves often focus their energy primarily on mass media—getting the word out through radio, TV, newspaper, the Internet, direct mail, etc., while neglecting their friends, family and neighbors. Why? They think friends and family represent only a small number of people, and what difference can that make? All. The. Difference.

As we talked about earlier, the average person’s influence is 250 people. If your product is strong, those people will tell people who tell people, who tell people …

During the past year a book called The Shack has rocketed up the best-seller list. It’s already sold over 1 million copies. So the publisher must have spent beaucoup bucks promoting it, right? Uh, no.

The book was self-published. And the author’s entire marketing budget was $300. But he told people, who told people, who told people.

To achieve sales success with your company or product do the following: Make a great product. Tell everyone. Everyone.

Also in this series:

• 10 Marketing Lessons from a 12-year-old Entrepreneur
• What’s Your Passion?
• 5 Tips for Becoming an Expert at Your Craft
• 5 Ways to Stay Motivated
• Get Them in Your Gravity Well

Tags: grassroots marketing, HeBlogsSheBlogs.com, marketing lessons

We’ve been exploring 12-year-old Daniel Franklin’s 10 Marketing lessons and today we’re going to expand on lesson # 3: Building a customer base by giving away product. While the idea isn’t new, it’s recently hit pop culture in a major way.

Radiohead received a massive amount of media exposure when they offered a limited time, “pay as much (or little) as you want” for their album, In Rainbows.

More recently Suze Orman offered a limited time, free download of her new book, Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny. (It’s since hit the bestseller list.) And these are just two examples.

Giving away a free album or book might seem counterintuitive, but it made it extremely easy for a potential paying customer to sample their product. Daniel gave his pens away to teachers for Christmas presents. Do you think those teachers talked about it? Are you kidding?

Marketers like Daniel know giving away free product can lead to powerful, positive word of mouth. Marketers call this a gravity well, or marketing funnel.

The top of the funnel is wide; it’s easy to get into. As you go deeper the funnel narrows, and once you reach a certain point, the product(s) is no longer free. Can you stop once there are costs attached? Of course. But if you like what you’ve seen and sampled so far, you’re much more likely to pull out your credit card than if you’d never entered the Gravity Well in the first place.

Laura and I have a friend, Randy Ingermanson, who developed a brilliant method for developing novels called the Snowflake Method. Thousands of fiction writers have downloaded Randy’s pdf file for free. What does Randy get? Names. Randy teaches fiction writing and markets to those thousands of people who were enticed by his Snowflake Method. Simple? Yes. Strong results? Yes.

Does this mean we’ll be giving away free resources here at He Blogs, She Blogs? Absolutely. Not only through our blogs, but with downloadable content (which will appear soon.) Does this work for any product? Just about. No, car dealers can’t be giving away free cars, but what about free oil changes? Or car washes?

So brainstorm. What can you give away to get people entering your Gravity Well? All ideas welcome.

• 10 Marketing Lessons from a 12-year-old Entrepreneur
• What’s Your Passion?
• 5 Tips for Becoming an Expert at Your Craft
• 5 Ways to Stay Motivated

Tags: 10 Marketing Lessons, Gravity Well, HeBlogsSheBlogs.com, Randy Ingermanson

I just finished reading Home to Holly Springs, the latest installment in the best-selling Mitford Series. Jan Karon has a rare gift for creating characters so real, you feel as if you’ve known them your whole life. She’s one of the few authors who can—in the course of one page—elicit both laughter and tears from me.

Her books harken back to the good old days of literature, when conversation was king and relationships ruled. Her characters engage in sparkling, unembellished dialogue that speaks for itself.

In this excerpt, Father Tim advises his two new buddies, T and Ray, what to name the product they’ve just created—a Kudzu-based cream that makes hair grow on bald spots:

T stooped over the chair and pointed to the top of his head. “Feel this,” he said.

He raised his forefinger and felt it.

“Fuzzy.”

“Dern right. Fuzzy as a peach. About a week, an’ we got fuzzy. It’s gon’ work.”

“Good timing. I might have a name for you.” He’d finagled it out of his feeble brain one night at the hotel.

“Shoot,” said T.

“But remember I’m a preacher. I’m not a marketing maven.”

“Yeah,” said Ray, “but bein’ a preacher puts you in sales, an’ that’s good enough for us.”

“Let’s start with packaging, so when I get to the name, you can, you know, imagine the way the name will look to the consumer.”

“Good deal,” said T.

“A white tube.”

“We’re with you,” said T.

“Blue lettering. I read a study that said men like the color blue—has authority.”

“What about women?” said Ray. “We don’t want t’ lose out on that demographic.”

“I didn’t get that far,” he said. “But I’ll keep it in mind. For the lettering, I’d use bold type. Sans serif.” He’d done pew bulletins, he knew this stuff. “Sans serif is more contemporary, though I’m a serif man, myself. Okay. Here’s the name…”

You could hear a pin drop.

“Mo’ Hair.”

“I don’t get it,” said Ray.

“Try again,” said T. “If you don’t mind.”

“Okay. You’ll like this. Hair to Spare.”

“Man! said T. “Hair to Spare. That’s it. I like it. I really like it.”

What did you learn from this snippet?

• In what part of the world do you think the story takes place?
• What do you learn about each of the characters?
• How old are the characters?
• What kind of a relationship do the characters have with one another?

Now, let’s examine Jan Karon’s dialogue-writing technique:

• How often does she include an attribution? (the “said so and so”)
• In what part of the sentence does she include the attribution?
• How often do the characters speak in incomplete sentences?
• How often does the author insert narration? How does the narration move or slow down the dialogue?

Does this dialogue “work” for you? Why or why not?

Tags: dialogue techniques, HeBlogsSheBlogs.com, Home to Holly Springs, Jan Karon

Here’s what’s been happening on our clients’ blogs lately:

San Francisco Flower & Garden Show

• Flower & Garden Show makes big move to San Mateo in ‘09
• May gardening classes, tours, and events in Northern California

Rich’s for the Home

• Hot tub maintenance tips
• The role of music in outdoor entertaining

Puget Sound Sewing & Craft

• Confessions of a craftygrrrl

Alderbrook Properties

• Recycling program for compact fluorescent bulbs
• Farmers’ markets on the Olympic Peninsula

Northwest Flower & Garden Show

• Did you know that your garden furniture talks?
• Benefits of using seaweed in your garden, and other tidbit

Tags: Alderbrook Properties, business blogsNorthwest Flower & Garden Show, HeBlogsSheBlogs.com, Puget Sound Sewing & Craft, Rich's for the Home, San Francisco Flower & Garden Show

In our last post, we discussed the importance of practicing your craft daily. But how do you stay motivated to practice?

Success magazine offers five tips:

1. Write out your goals and refer to them often.
2. Exercise – it revs up your energy level.
3. Imagine something you’d like to be doing when you finish your project and make the task a priority.
4. Keep a photo of your goal in a place where you will see it often.
5. Sleep – six to eight hours of sleep per night fuels inspiration, clarity, and helps maintain healthy eating.

Source:
Success magazine April/May 2008

In This Series:

• 10 Marketing Lessons from a 12-year-old Entrepreneur
• What’s Your Passion?
• 5 Tips for Becoming an Expert at Your Craft

Tags: becoming an expert, HeBlogsSheBlogs.com, Marketing, motivation, Success magazine

Whenever people learn that I’ve written a couple of books, they respond, “Oh, I’ve always wanted to write a book about ________.” (fill in the blank with the topic you’ve dreamed of writing a book about)

I’ve heard that:

• 81 percent of Americans feel they have a book in them.
• 10 percent of that 81 percent actually write the book.
• 1 percent of that 10 percent work up the courage to pitch their book to literary agents and editors.
• 1 percent of the “pitchers” get offered a book contract.

Why do so few people pursue their dream of writing the next great American novel?

Simple. They’re not willing to practice the craft of writing.

They may think they are willing; they may say they are willing. But then they settle down in front of a computer screen and face that irritating, blinking cursor, they stare at it for a few minutes, then sigh and announce, “I have writer’s block.” Or… “I’m waiting for the muse to strike me.”

I believe this reluctance to practice one’s writing stems from our school days, when we slogged through countless English classes and were forced to write all those boring essays (I can claim this with assurance, because I used to be one of those rotten English teachers who assigned the boring essays). Most people with a high school diploma assume they can write as well as the next guy. Who needs to practice?

Imagine asking an athlete, “Why do you need to practice?”

They’d look at you as if you were crazy!

Of course athletes need to practice; many of them practice their sport several hours per day, seven days a week, year round.

Why should writers be any different? Why should roof builders and software developers and chefs be any different?

No matter what your passion, the only way you’re going to become an expert at it is to practice, practice, practice.

Here are five tips for building a habit of practicing:

1. Schedule daily time—whether it be 10 minutes or two hours—for practicing your craft.
2. Find a mentor. This person should be more advanced than you at your craft, and should be willing to encourage you, scold you, and hold you accountable.
3. Brainstorm fun ways to practice: attend a conference where you’ll meet others who share a mutual passion for your craft; enroll in a class where you can brush up on the latest techniques.
4. Set measurable, attainable goals. Instead of saying, “I’m going to write the next great American novel,” say, “I’m going to write 300 words per day for the next five days.” Remember, it takes about six weeks of regular practice to establish a habit.
5. Reward yourself for meeting your practice goals. After X hours of deliberate practice, allow yourself a special treat. Make sure that treat is something that highly motivates you to practice!

What craft are you going to commit to becoming an expert at? Make your public commitment right now, right here, and start practicing!

In this series:

• 10 Marketing Lessons from a 12-year-old Entrepreneur
• What’s Your Passion?

Tags: becoming an expert, HeBlogsSheBlogs.com, Marketing, practice, Writing