Pull Back the Curtain: Providing a Backstage Glimpse of Your Company

One of the primary objectives of any marketing campaign you run has nothing to do with selling your product or service. While these will always be important, equally necessary is your ability to sell yourself as a company. People want to know more about the people who work in your business and the values and ideals that you have. They want to be able to look at you as an authority. Pulling back the curtain and providing a “backstage” glimpse into your product or service is one of the single, best ways to accomplish both of these things at the same time.

The Benefits of the Backstage Approach

One of the major benefits of this type of “backstage” approach is that it helps position you as a true authority on a particular topic. It’s one thing for you to SAY that a product performs X, Y, and Z functions – it’s another thing entirely to prove it by providing an unprecedented look into the design and development process. You can shed insight on your decision-making process, for example, helping them to not only SEE what your product does but WHY.

Taking a “backstage” approach to marketing also helps to strengthen the intimate, organic connection you’re able to create with your target audience – thus helping to build brand loyalty. Think about it from the perspective of the entertainment industry, as celebrities, in particular, are masters at this. DVDs are filled with hours of special features outlining how a scene was shot, how a script was written, how a special effect was pulled off and more. This instantly makes something that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make seem smaller and more intimate, while letting audiences take their experience to a whole new level at the same time. Providing a similar look into your own operation will have the same effect for you, too.
Pulling Back the Curtain

Unless you’re launching a product that is shrouded in complete secrecy, you can start pulling back the curtain pretty much right away. Even if it’s something as simple as updating a weekly blog post with sketches, schematics, and other materials from the research and development phase, this will go a long way towards increasing transparency across the board. Have employees talk about the specific work they’re doing on a daily basis and how even though they’re all working separately, they’re all contributing to a larger whole.

This startlingly simple approach helps to close the gap in between business and customer, making a customer actually feel like they’re a natural part of the process. When you combine this with all of your other marketing techniques, you’re looking at a striking amount of loyalty built just from publicizing activities that were already going on behind closed doors anyway.

These are just a few of the many reasons why providing a “backstage” glimpse can help bring your product or service to life. Not only does it help provide a valuable context to the particular product or service that you’re trying to sell, but it also helps build a strong, positive impression of your company. People will stop seeing you as a faceless entity and will start looking at you more like the living, breathing, hardworking people that you really are. This will only deepen the connection that you have with your target audience and make interaction more meaningful in the future.

Turning Failure Into Success – Stories of Famous Achievers and Their Failures

Every entrepreneur, and I do mean every, has had a taste of failure at one time or another. The slam-dunk business idea that landed flat. The star product that fizzled out. It happens more often than you really hear about, but to those individuals that it’s happening to, the “failures” can be seriously disheartening. If you’re feeling a bit down about a business venture that didn’t go as you planned, don’t lose hope. Countless well-known and successful individuals have achieved their dreams despite multiple setbacks. Their stories are sure to inspire you.

Henry Ford
Best known for the most ubiquitous automobile on the road today, Ford founder, Henry Ford had a rocky start. Early on in his life, Ford worked as an engineer for the Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit. It was during this time that he built the first gasoline-powered horseless carriage in a shed behind his home. Due to a number of factors, including controversial views on politics and battles with the United Automobile Workers, Ford reportedly went broke three different times. Despite numerous setbacks, Ford went on to develop new methods for mass production that put the automobile within the reach of ordinary citizens.

Louis Pasteur
Louis Pasteur was a French Chemist and Microbiologist most well-known for his invention of pasteurization, a process that kills bacteria in food through extreme heat. Beyond making food safer for people for years to come, this below-average chemistry student is also responsible for creating vaccines for anthrax and rabies. Not bad for a student ranked 15 out of 22 chemistry students!

George Lucas
George Lucas…the man that brought us Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Darth Vader, and the Force, fueled every kids’ dream of being a fighter pilot in outer space. It’s hard to imagine that a franchise worth over $30 billion began with rejections from every studio in Hollywood before 20th Century Fox finally took a chance on it. We shudder to think what would have happened had he just given up and went home.

He’s what George Lucas says about failure: “If you’re creating things, you’re doing things that have a high potential for failure, especially if you’re doing things that haven’t been done before. And you learn from those things. No matter how you cut it, you say, ‘Well, that didn’t work,’ or, ‘Well, this didn’t work,’ or ‘That was not the best idea.’ And you use that information that you’ve gotten, which is experience… Failure is another word for experience.”

Walt Disney
Known for his fanciful theme parks and animated children’s tales, Walt Disney wasn’t always living in the lap of luxury. Countless instances of adversity rained down on Disney in his early years as an animator. After having to dissolve his company in 1921, he was unable to pay his rent and was living on dog food to survive. Later, after gaining some success with a cartoon character named Oswald the Rabbit, Universal obtained ownership of the character and hired all of Disney’s artists when Disney tried to negotiate with Universal Studios to increase his pay. Not surprisingly, Disney reportedly suffered from depression during his long career. The suffering and perseverance paid off, as assets of the Walt Disney Company are currently in excess of $89 billion in 2015.

Dr. Seuss
Who would have thought that one of the most well-known and revered children’s book authors had trouble getting his writing career off of the ground? It’s true, though. The crafty “Cat in the Hat” creator was reportedly rejected by 27 publishers for his first book “And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street.” The 28th publisher, Vanguard Press, took a chance on the young author, ultimately selling over 6 million copies of that first book. Since then, Dr. Suess has published over 40 books and sold over 600 million copies. The best part is how he made a positive impact on the lives of millions of kids around the world.

Remember, you write your own stories, so you are in control of writing your ending. Will those “failures” become opportunities or excuses to quit?

Tips for Getting Maximum Mileage Out of Your Marketing Content

Consider how things may have changed since that original piece of content went out into the world. Maybe you designed a post for Facebook that was hugely successful but now a new social media network has entered the marketplace. A few key adjustments could make that old piece ready for a brand new audience.

The same can be said of taking something from the print world and bringing it into the digital realm, and vice versa. Take that informative print flyer you sent out a few weeks ago and use it as the framework for a blog post. You get the benefit of increasing the longevity (and again, the ROI) of that original content and you get it in front of a whole new crop of people at the same time.

While many people think of content marketing as “disposable,” it absolutely does not have to be that way. A good piece of content is a good piece of content – period. By carefully practicing techniques like redistribution and repurposing, you can stretch the value of that content as far as it will go, and get as many miles out of it as you can.

What Are These New Facebook Reactions and What Do They Mean for My Business?

A few months ago, Mark Zuckerberg treated his staff to a movie night. The film…Pixar’s Inside Out. The Facebook staff watched in confused amazement wondering who these emotions were and more importantly, where is the big, blue and white like-button thumb? A few individuals voiced what everyone else was thinking…wouldn’t it be swell if Facebook allowed people to have more than one possible emotional reaction to the things they see and read?

A legendary hack-a-thon ensued, spanning an entire month. The result? We now have the choice to not just like something, but to LOVE something, laugh at something, or express shock, sadness and anger. To express our new emotions, all we have to do is hover over the traditional blue and white thumb and six new emojis emerge. For mobile users, simply hold down the thumb and your new emojis will appear.

From a social standpoint, we are all feeling liberated at our ability to express more than one emotion without the necessity of typing out a complete thought. But what does this mean for businesses and people marketing on Facebook? Quite a bit actually…

Aside from the obvious point that you can now identify and quantify how many people feel about your post, there are some handy things you can now do as a business owner that may give you an upper hand with your competition. Because these emotional responses are public, you can do some recon work and check out how people are reacting to your competitors’ content as well. Based on your gathered intel, you can now customize your content to better reflect what people are interested in.

This new functionality can also enable you to get more bang for your buck while advertising on Facebook. If you go to your Insights page on Facebook, you can access data on people’s reactions to each post. If one or more posts are engaging more individuals or are loved by more individuals, you can choose to boost that post for a fee. This takes the guesswork out of deciding where to spend your advertising dollars.

We are all well aware of the reality that it’s just not realistic that you’re going to “like” every post that makes it into your feed because sooner or later the content will be about some atrocity that’s being committed that you want to stop. So, instead of liking the post, you, like most people, just keep scrolling. It’s not that the post was not engaging, it’s just that people don’t want to “like” the content. With the new reactions, people can express sadness or anger at the content of the post, letting them know that it was read and stirred some emotion. The upside for your business is that you can post more meaningful content about issues that are important to them and not worry about losing points for attention because all of the reactions count as “likes” on your page.

Have you ever had one of those days when your server goes down or your payment processing company is having issues? It can really derail your day and cause some ruffled feathers with your customers. People love to go negative on social media if they feel they’re not being heard. The reaction emojis can now help you avoid negative comments in your feed if something is not going quite right with your company. Next time this happens, try pinning a post to the top of your page explaining the situation and perhaps offering a discount to anyone who was inconvenienced by the event. Ask them to show some love to your company by clicking the heart emoji and watch a potentially negative experience turn into an opportunity to engage in a positive way with your customers.

As these reactions catch on, you can be sure more creative ideas will begin to flow on using them to benefit your company. You may even try holding a competition for a free giveaway while also showing people how to use the new reaction emojis. Ask people to show some love in exchange for a free product or service that you offer. Not only will you boost your likes, you will also make people loyal fans. Get creative and have fun. After all, it’s what the new emojis are all about.

Time Management for Entrepreneurs: Stop Killing Time and Start Investing Time

“The way we measure productivity is flawed. People checking their BlackBerry over dinner is not the measure of productivity.” – Timothy Ferriss

At the end of each day, do you take stock of what you’ve done and feel as though you were constantly busy, but you can’t for the life of you figure out how your time was spent? As days turn into weeks and weeks into months…we often feel exhausted, but with no real accomplishments to show for our efforts.

The problem is, most people see time as an infinite resource. They approach life like they’re driving down the street and miss a Starbucks, but happy in their knowledge that there’s another one a mile down the road. Likewise, we always think “tomorrow is another day” and promise ourselves we’ll keep track of our time and use it wisely then. This mindset is the best way to never accomplish what you want in life.

When we think of money, though, our mindset is a bit different. Our society encourages us to work hard when you’re young and invest your money so that when you retire and no longer make money, you’ll have that nest egg to spend. If you invest in your time, though, really spectacular things can happen.

Understand your productivity cycles.

Ernest Hemingway wrote in the morning because that was his most creative time of the day. Former Prime Minister Winston Churchill, on the other hand, reportedly didn’t get out of bed before 11:00 am, preferring to work late into the night. Having a solid understanding and respect for when you are at your most productive will enable you to reserve your most important work for when you’re at your mental best.

Make a list of the most important things you want to accomplish.

Making a list of the things you need to accomplish can help us overcome what’s called the Zeigarnik Effect. No, it’s not a mosquito-borne virus. You’ve experienced the Zeigarnik Effect on those nights you can’t sleep because you’re endlessly trying to remember everything you need to do and keep it organized in your mind. This happens during the day as well, when you’re trying to concentrate on the task at hand, but your mind is still whirring in the background keeping your list organized. Give your brain a break and write it all down. Take a few minutes to prioritize those items for better efficiency.

Do the most important things first each day.

By doing the most important things first, you can always be assured that something important is done each day. Night owls, fret not, you can still save the most brain-intensive or creativity-intensive items for those 2:00 am writing sessions, just make sure that if something absolutely needs to be done in the morning, it gets done.

Don’t discount small blocks of time.

As a society, we’ve taken to killing time on our phones during those periods of time when standing in line, or commuting on a bus or train. Time is too valuable to kill! Instead of checking Facebook while waiting for your coffee, identify things on your list that take up small amounts of time and get those done while you’re waiting instead.

Finally, schedule in some down time for yourself. Nothing kills productivity more than a burned-out mind. Take a look at how you’re spending your time and see how you can better spend it using these easy tips.

How Social Media Changes Everything in Terms of Customer Engagement

Customer engagement has always been one of the primary contributing factors when it comes to strengthening a brand or growing a business, but this is especially true in an era where social media rules the day. The conversation between a business and its customers is more important than ever, but the actual mechanism through which that conversation is unfolding has changed dramatically in a short period of time. When it comes to customer engagement and social media, there are a number of important things to keep in mind.

All Eyes Are On You

Perhaps the biggest factor to understand when it comes to social media and customer engagement is the idea that a conversation between a business and its customers is both more intimate and more public than it has ever been. If a customer has a positive experience with a representative of your brand on their Twitter page, they’re never more than a mouse-click away from telling all of their friends about it. The reverse is also true – a negative experience on a site like Facebook can have huge potential ramifications due to the public nature of that conversation in the first place.

If you search for your brand’s name on Twitter and see users talking about an issue they’re having, you can easily interject with some troubleshooting tips to help them get the most from their product or service. Not only did you solve their problem, but they also didn’t have to ask for help – this is a “win-win” scenario as far as customer engagement is concerned.

There Are No More Small Problems

Consider the public relations nightmare that Entenmann’s created for itself, for example. One day, a social media marketer at Entenmann’s hopped on Twitter, looked at the current worldwide trending topics and noticed that one happened to be #notguilty. Sensing an opportunity to both interject into a popular conversation and craft a pretty solid pun at the same time, the brand sent out a tweet asking who was “#notguilty about eating all the tasty treats they want.”

The issue with this is that, as it turns out, the #notguilty hashtag was created as a result of the highly controversial Casey Anthony trial – the verdict of which had just come down earlier that day. Suddenly a seemingly innocuous tweet about snack cakes turned into a national nightmare for the brand as they were seen as obtuse at best and highly insensitive at worst – all of which could have been avoided had the marketer just clicked on the hashtag to see what it was actually referring to. This is the type of major issue that simply didn’t exist five years ago before social media became such a permanent fixture in our lives.

These are just a few of the many ways that social media has changed just about everything in terms of customer engagement in the digital age. We believe that success in this field requires a deeper understanding of the game that you’re now playing as a business owner, so to speak. It’s now easier than ever to pay attention to the conversations that your customers are having with one another and interject in positive and meaningful ways. This is a two-way street, however – one wrong move and you’re potentially looking at a PR nightmare on a massive scale, so making sure that you’re always putting your best foot forward is more important than ever.

Typography and Your Brand: How the Way Your Message Looks Affects the Way It Feels

As a marketer, a huge amount of your time is spent crafting the perfect message to really grab hold of the attention of your target audience in a way that they will be unable to break away from. The words that you’re using are so important that many people fail to pay enough attention to another element that is just as necessary: typography. Simply put, the way that your message looks can ultimately affect everything from the way the reader digests it to how it is interpreted in a number of different ways.

What Your Typography Says About You

The term typography does not refer to any one particular type of font, but rather an entire family of fonts. Serif and Sans Serif are two different fonts, for example, but they both belong to the same family. Serif and Times New Roman, on the other hand, are two completely different font families.

Simple typography selection can actually be a great way to make a particular impression on your reader even before they’ve had a chance to digest what your marketing materials are saying. Serif fonts tend to invoke a feeling of professionalism or traditionalism, for example, while fonts designed to mimic handwriting tend to come off as much more casual and approachable. Script fonts tend to be perceived as more formal. As a result, when crafting your buyer personas you should be thinking about not only what they want you to say, but how they want you to say it. An older target audience would likely respond more to Serif typography, whereas a younger audience may prefer the additional friendliness that handwriting-style typography conveys.

Brand Consistency

One of the major benefits of making strong typography choices in your marketing materials feeds back into the larger idea of brand consistency. Take the typography of your corporate logo as just one example. By making a strong typeface decision early in the designing process and using the same overarching idea across all mediums, you can make all of your communications feel like they’re coming from the same place. If your print flier uses the same basic typography selection as your website, for example, they suddenly feel like they’re coming from one place even though they’re being digested via two incredibly different forms of communication.

Controlling Pace with Typography

Typography can also be a great, subtle way to dictate the speed at which certain marketing materials can be read. Say you have a 500-word print flier that you can’t edit to be shorter, but also are afraid may be overwhelming to the reader. By using a different typography selection to highlight certain key points, you’re immediately commanding the reader to stop and pay attention to those lines. All of the information is still there, but if their eye is naturally drawn to the contrasting typography (as it likely will be), they can skim the entire flier if they want and still walk away with the message you wanted them to receive.

These are just a few of the ways that typography ultimately feeds into how successfully your message is received by your target audience. By taking a deeper level of control over typography, in addition to crafting the specific message you’re trying to convey based on word-choice, your brand stands a much better chance of making the type of positive and meaningful impact on your target audience that you were after in the first place.