Press Interviews: How to Not Sound Like a Dummy

By John San Filippo, jmsb@johnsanfilippo.com
www.johnsanfilippo.com
Subscribe: www.tinyurl.com/jmsbblog

Press interviews are great – as long as you don’t say something stupid. The more prepared you are for an interview and the better you understand the interview process, the less likely you are to say something stupid. That’s where this blog comes in.

The first thing to consider when a reporter asks you for an interview is whether you’re really an expert on the topic. Sometimes a reporter will call just because he thinks you might have something to say about a particular topic. There’s no shame in telling the reporter that this particular topic is outside your wheelhouse if that’s the case. Like the old saying goes, it’s better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you’re ignorant than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. That said, make sure you invite the reporter to call you back about other topics that may better fit your expertise.

So you’ve agreed to an interview. Now what?

Now you prepare. But how do you do that? The one thing you don’t want to do is waste a lot of time memorizing facts and figures. If a reporter is only looking for facts and figures, she’ll turn to Google, not you. What a reporter is looking for is a point of view. What do you, as an expert, think about those facts and figures?

Unless you already have several interviews under your belt, you should take the time to talk to others in your organization, especially the person or persons responsible for your PR. Decide what your overall message is for the given topic, as well as what talking points you want to cover. Brainstorm questions you think the reporter will ask, but …

An interview is one time you should definitely expect the unexpected. The unexpected question, that is. No matter how well you prepare, you’re going to get a question you didn’t anticipate. In fact, when I was a reporter, that’s when I knew I was doing a good job – when the interviewee paused, said, “Gee, that’s a good question,” and then paused again to think of the answer.

The most important thing to remember during an interview is to stay relaxed. An interview is really just a conversation between someone who knows something (you) and someone who wants to know what you know (the reporter). Treat it as such and you should do fine.

Of course, there are some reporters out there who like stirring the pot. They’re the exception, I promise you, but they seem intent on making you break the golden rule of don’t say something stupid. And when I say something stupid, I don’t necessarily mean something nonsensical. I mean something you’ll regret having said later.

There’s a great article here that covers five common “trick” questions and how to deal with them. Based on my own experience, the one you need to be most watchful of is the question about your competition. Briefly stated, don’t ever talk about your competitors to a reporter. I know it’s tempting. After all, your company is so much better than theirs. But don’t do it. In fact, don’t even mention them by name in any context. That way, your meaning can’t be misconstrued.

Along these same lines, be careful of the reporter that comes across too chummy. Maybe he really is that friendly, or maybe he’s trying to get you to put your guard down and offer up that stupid comment. Better safe the sorry.

Finally, don’t ever ask the reporter if you can see a copy of the article before it goes to print. The answer will be no 100 percent of the time and you’ll end up looking like a rank amateur.

Need help prepping for an interview? Drop me an email.

That is all.

Amazon, Your New Diapers Smell Like Poo

By John San Filippo, jmsb@johnsanfilippo.com

www.johnsanfilippo.com

Subscribe: www.tinyurl.com/jmsbblog

 

I want to take this opportunity to thank Jeff Bezos. Jeff, you make my job so easy. Every time I’m looking for a what-not-to-do example of brand management, along you come with your next hair-brained idea.

My very first blog was about Amazon and its ridiculous brand extension strategy. For anyone unfamiliar with this term, here’s the Wikipedia definition:

Brand extension or brand stretching is a marketing strategy in which a firm marketing a product with a well-developed image uses the same brand name in a different product category. The new product is called a spin-off. Organizations use this strategy to increase and leverage brand equity. An example of a brand extension is Jello gelatin creating Jello pudding.

Extending one’s brand can make a lot of sense – and a lot of money. Using the example above, the leap from gelatin to pudding is a short one, so it makes sense to people.

 

Then there’s Amazon. Amazon seems to think it can be successful with any product or service just by stamping an Amazon label on it. When I wrote my previous blog on Amazon and brand extension, the company had just introduced the Fire Phone. I predicted that the Fire Phone would be a fiery flop – and it was. When a consumer wants a new phone, there’s no way Amazon can compete with Apple or Samsung for top-of-mind positioning.

 

That didn’t stop Amazon from introducing the Fire Stick, which appears to be a Google Chromecast knock-off. Amazon expects you to believe that they’re now experts in television viewing experiences.

 

Just when I thought I’d seen it all (or smelled it all, as the case may be), along comes the news that Amazon is getting into the disposable diaper business. Yes, you read this correctly and it’s not an Internet prank. Amazon has slapped its brand label on your baby’s butt – as long as you’re an Amazon Prime member, that is.

 

It’s true. Along with video streaming and free shipping on some items (whatever those two have to do with each other), your Amazon Prime membership now includes the privilege of buying Amazon diapers. Non-members will still need to find their diapers elsewhere.

 

It’s hard for me to even imagine the strategy session that resulted in this brilliant idea. Let’s see. We’ve already turned our bookstore into a big flea market. We’re trying to keep up with Google and Microsoft in the cloud computing business. We’re also-rans in a wide array of consumer electronic items. How can we screw this brand up even further? That’s it! Diapers!!

 

How should Amazon have extended its brand? I said years ago that they should have opened brick-and-mortar bookstores. An observation I made just the other day convinced me I was right.

 

My seven-year-old granddaughter is an exceptional reader and, unlike me at that age, she actually enjoys reading. When she needs a new book, does she say, “Nanu, log me onto iBooks,” or, “Nanu, bring up the Amazon website on your computer”? No, she says, “Nanu, can we go to Barnes & Noble?” Can we go to Barnes & Noble? That's a great user experience.

 

Banks and credit unions continue to build branches, and they’re not alone. Brick and mortar is making a comeback. You heard it here first.

 

But is there a lesson in all this for financial technology companies? I think the lesson is universal. The only thing that drives crazy brand extension is greed. So the simple lesson is: Don’t be greedy. Among the many other problems that greed causes, it will screw up your brand. And in the end, your brand is really all you have.

 

That is all.

 

WTH Is the Diff Between a Product Sheet, a Case Study and a White Paper?

By John San Filippo, jmsb@johnsanfilippo.com 

www.johnsanfilippo.com 

Subscribe: www.tinyurl.com/jmsbblog 

 

We’ve already established that content marketing is a pretty important thing. You can read my thoughts on the topic here, as well as here. With the holiday slow-down inevitably upon us, it’s a good time to take inventory of your content pieces, make sure everything is up to date, and most important of all, see if you’re missing anything you need.

 

Implicit in this last step is an understanding of how each content piece is supposed to function – what purpose it serves. So today I’m going to discuss three common marketing documents and where they fit in your content arsenal.

 

Product Sheets

 

Call it a product sheet, a product brief, a product slick, a brochure. Whatever you call it in your organization, I’m talking about a document dedicated to describing a single product.

 

My rule of thumb: Every product should have a product sheet. It doesn’t make sense to me to tell a prospect that our product is important enough for you to buy, but not important enough to justify one stinkin’ page of copy.

 

Of course, like all others, this rule has an exception. If your product has a base module and a bunch of optional add-on modules, it makes sense to explain the entire suite in a single document. Imaging systems are a good example of this. Remember, the whole idea is to make your products easy to understand for prospects. And in any event, every product still gets mentioned somewhere in your marketing materials.

 

The Big Mistake: The most common mistake with product sheets is the copywriter who provides too much information. Stop the TMI! A product sheet isn’t supposed to tell everything there is to tell about a product. On the contrary, the product sheet should merely pique interest – it should raise questions and spark a conversation with the salesperson.

 

Case Studies

 

I love case studies. Out of all the content types you can produce, case studies create the most emotional connection with their readers. That's because a case study represents a peer telling a reader how he or she addressed a situation.

 

Sure, anyone reading a case study knows it’s just another marketing document created by some company trying to pimp its products. On the other hand, the reader also knows that one of his peers was willing to put his name on the line to endorse the product.

 

That carries a lot of weight.

 

The case study format is fairly simple: 

1. Describe the problem.
2. Explain how it was solved.
3. Detail the results in quantifiable terms.

If you have happy customers, you have plenty of case study source material.

 

The Big Mistakes: There are two common case study mistakes. The first is adding a bunch of marketing fluff. For example, instead of saying, “Last National Bank achieved a 10-percent reduction in operating costs,” you might be tempted to say, “Last National Bank achieved a 10-percent reduction in operating costs because our product is so freaking great.”

 

People get that your product is so freaking great. They understand that’s why you’re writing a case study about it. You don’t need to beat them over the head with it. Step back out of the way and let your customers tell their own stories.

 

The other common mistake is multiple case studies that tell the same story. I’m all for more than one case study on the same product – as long as each one tells a unique story in terms of problems solved and results achieved. Otherwise, you’re just going to bore your readers telling the same story over and over again.

 

White Papers

 

Why do we write white papers? To establish thought leadership, right?

 

Whatever.

 

The Big Mistake: Yes, I’m starting this section with The Big Mistake.

 

If you’re only writing white papers for the lofty goal of establishing thought leadership – i.e., you’re not writing them with the willful intent to market your product – you’re missing the boat.

 

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying there’s no value in thought leadership. What I’m saying is that you need to put some effort into deciding exactly what direction you want to lead that thought. Or put more bluntly, you need an ulterior motive.

 

I’ve found that white papers are especially useful in two situations. The first is when there’s some broad misunderstanding or lack of knowledge out in the marketplace.

 

For example, document management (DM) systems and enterprise content management (ECM) systems both compete for an FI’s imaging dollars. ECM systems are much more robust, but they’re also typically more expensive. Do you know the difference between DM and ECM? If you’d read the white paper I created when I was at Jack Henry, you would. My paper explained the difference, but in a way that clearly pointed the reader toward ECM (JHA’s product).

 

Another great use of a white paper is to espouse the features that make your product unique, but in a very generic way – in other words, to highlight your key competitive differentiators without telling anyone that’s what you’re doing.

 

For example, suppose the key differentiators of your product are “less filling” and “tastes great.” You might write a white paper explaining why anyone shopping for a product in your product class should only consider products that are less filling and taste great. You sound neutral in the white paper, but the logic inevitably leads the reader to your product, and only your product.

 

If any of this doesn’t make sense, please feel free to drop me a note. I’d love to hear from you.

 

That is all.

 

  

There Must Be 50 Ways to Run a Tradeshow ... 50 Ways to Run a Tradeshow

By John San Filippo, jmsb@johnsanfilippo.com
www.johnsanfilippo.com
Subscribe: www.tinyurl.com/jmsbblog


As a follow-up to last week’s post on tradeshow success,
I thought I’d offer a lighter take in honor of Thanksgiving.
Feel free to sing along to the tune of that Paul Simon classic.
Happy Thanksgiving all!

The problem is all inside your head.
I tell you so.
The answer is easy. Let me
Tell you what I know.
I'd like to help you make your
Tradeshow presence grow.
There must be fifty ways
To run a tradeshow.

It all depends on how you’re hoping
To be viewed.
Please don’t be crude or lewd or rude.
You must be forever shrewd.
If you go without a plan,
You will certainly be screwed.
There must be fifty ways
To run a tradeshow.
Fifty ways to run a tradeshow.

You just pack up the booth, Ruth.
Hop on the plane, Dwayne.
Call up the press, Jess,
And have a great show.

You set up a meet, Pete.
Work until dawn, Shawn.
Lock up when you leave, Steve,
And have a great show.

Don’t Screw Up Your Tradeshow: 3 Lessons from BAI Retail Delivery

By John San Filippo, jmsb@johnsanfilippo.com
www.johnsanfilippo.com
Subscribe: www.tinyurl.com/jmsbblog

Are you tired of tradeshows eating up your marketing budget with little to no apparent return? Do you think it’s a waste of time to have your employees manning your booth when they could be doing real work? Is your travel budget out of control? Be honest. Do you think tradeshows just suck?

I’ll be brutally honest. The problem isn’t tradeshows. The problem is you. If your entire tradeshow “strategy” is making sure that your booth is set up and that cardboard-cutout employees are positioned in the booth in case a prospect comes by, you’re right – tradeshows suck.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. I just got back from covering BAI Retail Delivery in Chicago for CU Times. While there, I was reminded of three simple ways that you can assure success at most any tradeshow.

1. Have a Plan!

That seems simple enough, doesn’t it? Have a plan. Obvious, right?

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to the sales manager at a reasonably well-known fintech company. We’ll call it Company A.

Knowing that Company A had exhibited at Retail Delivery in the past, I asked whether they’d be there this year, as well. The sales manager told me no. He said that every year, he reviewed the attendee list and sent salespeople to Retail Delivery who had prospects attending. But for the most part, the salespeople never caught up with the prospects they were looking for. So, reasoned the sales manager, why bother?

While at Retail Delivery, I found myself at a bar (Would it be better if I said it was a juice bar?) with a group that included a top salesman from Company B, a competitor of Company A. I asked the salesman from Company B whether he was having a good show. No, he said, he was having a great show.

How could that be?

The salesman explained that when he got the attendee list, he started calling prospects for appointments. By the time he got to Retail Delivery, his calendar was booked solid. He got to speak to just about everybody on his list.

Let that sink in for a minute. Company A trusted blind luck and as a result found no value in Retail Delivery. Company B had a plan – a pretty simple plan – and it paid off big time. Need I say more?

2. Engage the Media

As soon as my name was added to the media list, my inbox was flooded with invitations to speak with representatives from various companies. I spoke with people from companies you’d probably recognize, like Fiserv (for a story that hasn’t been published yet) and Malauzi Software (for a story you can read here).

Clearly I didn’t have time to talk to everyone I would’ve wanted to, but I did interview a representative from a company I’d not heard much about. It’s an online and mobile banking company called Backbase. Apparently big in Europe, they claim to have solved the omnichannel conundrum. (You can read more about Backbase here.)

What’s my point? Sure, there’s a lot of competition for the attention of every journalist at a tradeshow, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to reach out. You never know if you’ll catch some reporter’s eye. And guess what else. I saved all those emails. If I ever need a source for a particular topic, I’ll check those emails first.

3. Differentiate Yourself

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times. Marketing is all about differentiation. That’s another no-brainer, but most people seem to forget about differentiation when they’re getting ready for a tradeshow.

What do I mean by differentiation? Here’s a simple example. At Retail Delivery, there was a reception in the expo hall both nights. The first night, online banking provider Q2 gave away soft pretzels in their booth. The second night, they had draught beer.

Am I trying to imply that anyone’s online banking decision would be swayed by a pretzel? Of course not. However, a month from now, if someone asked you to name an online banking provider you saw at Retail Delivery, I think there’s a decent chance you’d think of the beer and pretzel company first. That’s not bad brand reinforcement.

On the other hand, I think you can go too far with differentiation. There was another exhibitor that had a magician in its booth. He was great. In fact, he was so great, I got his business card. But he was also so great, I completely forgot the company he represented. His greatness overshadowed their message, at least for me. Oops.

Why I’m Right

Back in 1999, Las Vegas played host to the 20^th annual COMDEX computer show. It was the most amazing event I ever attended. It occupied the entire Las Vegas Convention Center, the entire Sands Convention Center, all of the meeting rooms at the Las Vegas Hilton, and three gigantic temporary buildings in the convention center parking lot.

By 2004, COMDEX had vanished. What happened, and how did it happen so quickly? IMHO, the Internet happened. Exhibitors and attendees alike reasoned that there was no point in attending big tradeshows when the Web provided such a great conduit for product information. It was all right there at everyone’s fingertips, right?

Remember how video conferencing was supposed to eliminate your travel budget? Didn’t happen, did it? The same is true with tradeshows. People are finally starting to realize that there’s just no substitute for live human interaction. Tradeshows are making a comeback. It’s up to you whether they’re a smart investment or a stupid waste of money.

That is all.

Same Bat Time, Same Bat Omnichannel

by John San Filippo, jmsb@johnsanfilippo.com 
www.johnsanfilippo.com 
Subscribe: www.tinyurl.com/jmsbblog

I’m sitting in a Chili’s Too at DFW with about three hours to kill, so how better to kill them than by writing a short blog? I’m on my way to Chicago – where I hear it’s about six degrees – for the BAI Retail Delivery Show. I’m on assignment for Credit Union Times.

As I sit here sipping my ninth iced tea, I wonder what the buzz will be about at RDS this year. Last year in Denver, it was omnichannel. It was everywhere. You couldn’t take three steps without tripping over omnichannel. I actually wondered whether presenters were incentivized to use the term, because they all did, and many of them used it even when it wasn’t appropriate.

I feared that if attendees heard the term omnichannel overused and misused as much as they did, they might get confused and, worse, might think omnichannel isn’t important. That would be tragic, because IMHO omnichannel is extremely important.

Do you know the difference between multichannel and omnichannel? Sure you do, but for the benefit of the next ignorant guy that clicks this link, I’ll explain it anyway.

Multichannel, as the names suggests, is having a presence in multiple delivery channels – ATMs, online banking, mobile, etc. Omnichannel extends that idea beyond a mere presence in all available channels. Omnichannel is about providing a consistent, transparent and whenever possible, continuous user experience across all those channels. By continuous, I’m referring to the ability for a consumer to leave off in one channel and finish up the transaction via another channel.

In other words, regardless of the channel, a consumer always knows he’s dealing with your FI because it always looks the same, feels the same, and works the same.

Hmm. That sounds an awful lot like smart branding, doesn’t it?

So, again IMHO, omnichannel is actually nothing more than the convergence of great technology and great branding. To that I would add: It’s about time! When you address every issue, at least in part, as a branding issue, only good things will happen. The emergence of omnichannel is an ideal case in point.

That is all.

Apple Pay vs CurrentC: A Battle of Brand Extensions

by John San Filippo, jmsb@johnsanfilippo.com
www.johnsanfilippo.com

Subscribe: www.tinyurl.com/jmsbblog

When I was but a lad, I went to a seminar (yes, a real, live event that I actually had to leave the house for) put on by Bob Bly. I checked Amazon and Bly hasn’t published a book on copywriting in a few years, but back when I was starting out, he was the crown prince of freelance copywriting.

One story he told has always stuck with me. This may be a BS story he concocted just to make a point, but he told us of a fellow copywriter who, to be as frugal as possible, did his own landscaping, home maintenance, etc. Being as tight as he was with his money, he couldn’t understand why he didn’t have more of it. Bly’s answer was obvious. The guy was spending too much time saving money and not enough time making money. The lesson was: Do what you’re good at and let other people do what they’re good at. Easy enough, right?

I’ve applied this rule time after time in the ensuing years, and it’s always served me well. Sure, I did my own brakes one time and built myself a PC once, but those were mostly just to say I did it. Generally speaking, I let the experts do what the experts are trained to do. However, it was only in the last couple of years that I realized all this is really just a lesson in brand extension.

(Click here to read my previous post on Amazon’s insanely goofy brand extension strategy.)

If my own brand is all about providing top-notch marketing and writing services to fintech companies, I’m truly stupid if I attempt to extend my brand into, say, landscaping – even if I’m only providing those services to myself. I need to stay focused on great marketing and writing, and let the gardener mow the lawn.

So what do lawn mowers have to do with mobile payments? Funny you should ask.

First, let me say for the record that payments have always been mobile. Cash is mobile. Credit cards are mobile. But of course, we’re talking about device-centric mobile payments. That’s a whole new ball game. And because it’s new, somebody needs to extend their brand into this space to fill the void. Should it be Apple and its partners, or should it be the retailer consortium known as the Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX)?

First let’s look at MCX, which really has no brand of its own. However, its big backers – CVS, Best Buy, and Walmart, for example – do have well-established brands. What do they all have in common? They’re all retailers. Beyond the fact that they’re all retailers, they have no experience in payments and payment systems, nor do they have any experience in developing consumer technology products. This all raises a giant brand extension red flag for me.

On the other hand, we have Apple, a company whose entire brand centers around making the human experience cooler through technology. From what I can tell, Apple Pay does exactly that. And while one might argue that Apple has no experience in payments, the same can’t be said for Apple’s partners in this endeavor – partners like Visa and MasterCard, along with hundreds of banks and credit unions. In other words, Apple Pay seems like a very logical extension of the Apple brand.

The folks at MCX have been pretty tight-lipped about the specifics, so speculation about potential technical issues has run rampant. Will transactions be settled one at a time via ACH, much like an uncoupled debit card? Will consumers need to preload their CurrentC account? Will consumers need a separate instance of CurrentC on their phone for each retailer? If yes to these last two questions, will all CurrentC instances share a common balance?

These are questions for another time, and probably for someone else’s blog. In the meantime, from a purely brand-oriented perspective, Apple Pay seems to be the obvious frontrunner in the mobile payments race. Walmart should stick to what it does best: selling stuff for dirt cheap and providing fodder for websites like this.

That is all.

SEO Ate My Press Release!

by John San Filippo, jmsb@johnsanfilippo.com
Subscribe: www.tinyurl.com/jmsbblog

Back in the day, you wrote a press release, issued it, and hoped for one of four possible outcomes:

• An editor or reporter would be so dazzled by your press release that they’d decide to develop it into a full story. (I had a dream this happened to me once.)
• Your press release would fit with some larger story and be incorporated therein.
• Your press release would establish your company and its executives as subject matter experts, increasing their chances of being interviewed later on a similar topic.
• A trade publication would distill your press release down to a few key sentences and use the distilled version as sidebar filler in an upcoming edition.

(All of these outcomes are good – and still viable – although some are clearly more advantageous than others.)

Then along came the Internet. And just as with so many other areas of endeavor, the Internet was very disruptive for the press release business. Just not necessarily in a good way.

 As the Internet exploded, the need for content likewise exploded. However, content budgets didn’t necessarily explode in similar fashion. This made press releases very attractive. Free content written by established industry leaders. Suddenly, press releases were appearing everywhere online.

That’s still a good thing, right?

Somewhere along the way, this caught the attention of the search-engine optimization (SEO) crowd. (For the uninitiated, SEO means “optimizing” your content and its online presentation to increase its chances of being found by someone via Google, Bing, etc.) The first thing you know, old Jed’s a millionaire … wait. That’s not it. The first thing you know, press releases shifted from a PR activity to an SEO activity.

Those SEO sneaksters unleashed their craftiness on press releases and it seemed like press releases would never be the same. Press releases started being written for computers instead of people. Arguments erupted over the proper keyword density for press releases. They became jam-packed with links designed to drive website traffic. In short, they kind of sucked.

Thankfully (IMHO), the big search engines frown on SEO. They want to help you find content because it’s relevant, not because somebody gamed the system with excessive keywords and links. Even more thankfully, those search engine peeps are smart enough to do something about it. In the last year or so, Google has changed its algorithms (that’s a euphemism for search-engine voodoo) to identify and filter out bogus press releases.

So that brings us full circle to writing press releases for actual people – your audience – instead of computers. Don’t get me wrong. It’s still smart to create your press releases with the Googlized world in mind.

For example, use common terminology in favor of your own internal terminology. Personal financial management, or PFM, is a pretty common term, right? Well, at my former employer, for reasons unclear, they chose to call it online financial management, or OFM. What do you think that did for people Googling for PFM? Not much.

The point is, you want people to find your press releases, and you want people to read your press releases. So write your damned press releases for people, not computers.

That is all.

What Keeps Magic Johnson Awake at Night?

by John San Filippo, jmsb@johnsanfilippo.com

Subscribe: www.tinyurl.com/jmsbblog

Yes, I was that close.

I had decided weeks ago to stop ranting about brand. I really did. Give your readers a break, I told myself. Don’t sound like a crazy, old man who keeps yammering about the same thing week after week.

And I did it, too. I spent a couple of weeks talking about content marketing. This week, I had every intention of launching a “back to basics” series. The first one was going to be on tips for writing an effective press release.

Then I hung out for an hour or so with my new BFF, Earvin “Magic” Johnson.

Ok, in truth it was more like 700 of us at the CCUL/NCUL REACH conference hung out with our new BFF, Magic Johnson. To say that he was the warmest, most engaging, most genuine speaker I’ve ever seen would be an understatement.

During the course of his presentation, he mentioned a couple of times the importance of performing a SWOT analysis. He said he performs one semi-annually and that they’re invaluable to keeping his many enterprises on track.

He never explained what SWOT stood for, so during the Q&A portion, a woman who wasn’t familiar with the term asked him to elaborate.

Magic explained that SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. He told the audience that his organization’s strengths lie in delivering the best customer service – taking care of their clients. He said he’s able to deliver a profit not only to his own company, but to his business partners as well. He noted his top-notch employees as a strength.

He went on to say that last year when he performed a SWOT analysis, he realized that although his company had landed some major deals, he didn’t have a big enough executive team to manage all of them. Thanks to the SWOT analysis, he identified and addressed the issue before it had become a real problem. “That SWOT saved me,” he told the group.

When you’re an NBA hall-of-famer, a major-league baseball owner, and the most successful African-American businessman in America, there seems to be no shortage of opportunities. Magic told us that he recently entered the healthcare space and is now evaluating about a half dozen proposals that would put him in the technology biz.

And then he got to threats. What keeps Magic Johnson awake at night? You’ve put up with all my drivel just to have that question answered.

“Keeping my brand safe,” said Magic. “That’s the biggest threat for me right now. Making sure I don’t damage my brand. Making sure I don’t partner with the wrong companies, because that could hurt my brand quick. That’s what keeps me up at night.”

So there you have it. One of the most successful entrepreneurs in the country says the thing that worries him most is possible damage to his brand. Could it be that’s exactly why he’s one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the country? You bet your sweet bippy.

That is all.

3 Content Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

by John San Filippo, jmsb@johnsanfilippo.com 
Subscribe: www.tinyurl.com/jmsbblog

Just as with any other form of marketing, there are plenty of mistakes to be made with your content marketing initiatives. Here are three that I believe are the most common based on my own personal observation.

It’s Not a Sin to Write Strategically

Content marketing is all about providing useful information to people in order to strengthen your brand, which, so the thinking goes, will increase the likelihood of those people buying from you down the road. And it works. That much is clear.

However, some purists will tell you that you should take a very altruistic approach to developing your content. In other words, you don’t want to appear to have a hidden agenda – which, of course, you really do have. You want your efforts to result in increased sales. You’re not creating all this great content as an act of charity.

The altruistic approach to content marketing might work for well-known consumer brands like Coca-Cola or Proctor & Gamble, but I believe it’s inappropriate for financial technology. After all, the value proposition for a can of soda pop is pretty straightforward. On the other hand, when you’re marketing, for example, IT automation software, the value proposition is a little more complex.

My point is, in a B2B setting, I don’t think you have to choose between giving your audience the information they think they want and giving them the information you know they need. With effective writing, you can do both. You can provide useful information while still offering a message that supports your brand. You just need to make the effort.

What We Have Here Is a Failure to Promote

It goes without saying that once you publish great content, you need to spread the word so that your content actually reaches your audience. However, there are two potential pitfalls here:

1. Not taking advantage of all the communication channels at your disposal.
2. Not crafting an appropriate message for each channel you use.

Make sure you consider all the possible ways you can get the word out. Of course, you’re going to tweet it, post it on LinkedIn and mention it on your Facebook page. But don’t forget the old classics either, like sending out a press release or putting a hyperlink in your email signature. Every person in your opt-in email list should know about your new content the same day it’s published. You can never think of too many ways to promote your content.

Don't be lazy in this effort, either. For example, you can set up Twitter to post your tweets to LinkedIn and Facebook on your behalf. This may be a tempting shortcut, but trust me, it’s a stupid idea.

For starters, Twitter is limited to 140 characters. Why would you want to limit your LinkedIn and Facebook posts to 140 characters?

More important, though, each e-distribution channel has it’s own personality – it’s own tone, if you will. Due to their limited length, tweets must be super concise, to the point of being somewhat cryptic now and then. This is okay; Twitter followers expect this.

Facebook is a much more casual medium than LinkedIn. Thus your Facebook post should have a more casual tone, while your LinkedIn post should be written with business professionals in mind. Invest the time and money to do this right, or don’t bother doing it at all.

To Gate or Not to Gate?

In the world of content marketing, gating refers to the practice of requiring a user to provide some amount of contact information in order to access or download your content. If your content is ungated, users can download it anonymously. Which is a better approach? There are two schools of thought.

I recently read a book called Epic Content Marketing by Joe Pulizzi. Pulizzi is considered by many to be the capo di tutti capi of content marketing. In his book, he makes the case for ungated content, rightly claiming that ungated content is downloaded more, which means it’s shared more by those downloaders. In other words, ungated content reaches a wider audience.

In a hypothetical scenario, Pulizzi compares the value of putting your content in the hands of 20,000 anonymous users to putting it in the hands of 2,000 identified users. According to Pulizzi, more is always better.

Frankly, I’d much rather have the 2,000 identified users. These are people that I can reach out to in various ways, who I can monitor and nurture. This is especially important in a B2B environment, and even more important for fintech providers. Plus, gating your content gives your competitors at least a modicum of incentive to keep away.

Obviously I’m not talking about gating your blog, for example. I’m talking about major pieces like white papers, e-books, and case studies. Collect at least an email address from each user or you’ll be blowing a big opportunity, IMHO.

In the End

If you have any questions or just think I’m full of baloney, feel free to leave a comment below or drop me an email. But no matter what, I urge you to take your content marketing efforts very seriously.

That is all.

Content Marketing Demystified: It Ain’t Rocket Surgery

by John San Filippo, jmsb@johnsanfilippo.com
www.johnsanfilippo.com

Content marketing is the hot topic in marketing today. In fact, 83 percent of the B2B companies recently surveyed by the Content Marketing Institute have some sort of content marketing strategy in place. Keep in mind, this is a group that specializes in content marketing, so I suspect their survey respondents may not be representative of the entire B2B universe. Nevertheless, there’s no denying that content marketing is beginning to snowball.

Maybe you’re considering a content marketing strategy. Or maybe you’re considering whether you should consider a content marketing strategy. Or maybe you’re even considering whether you should try to figure out what content marketing is all about. I’m here to help.

Content marketing is really nothing new. I see it as the evolution of what we used to call white paper marketing. White paper marketing has long been a favorite in the B2B technology marketing arsenal. Here’s an example from my days running marketing at Symitar.

For a fee, CUNA (the Credit Union National Association) will send out an email blast to its subscribers filled with content you provide. In the early days of this program, CUNA would only send one vendor email per month, which made it very exclusive. In other words, by locking all of these down a year or longer in advance, I could a) have access to a very attractive audience, and b) keep Fiserv, FIS, HFS and all the others away from this same audience.

This seemed like the perfect opportunity to launch a white paper marketing program. The process was simple. We’d write a compelling white paper – e.g., one on how to run a successful data processing conversion – and promote it through a CUNA eblast. The eblast linked the reader to a landing page designed just for that white paper. The reader was required to provide contact information to download the white paper, and that information was entered into our system as a lead.

This was a very effective program. Every white paper we published was typically downloaded hundreds of times (not bad for the relatively small credit union space), and a good number of closed core deals originated with a white paper download. In short, the program paid for itself many times over.

So why has something as simple as white paper marketing morphed into this beast we call content marketing? Simply stated, everything has gotten bigger. First of all, the list of content types one might produce has exploded. In addition to white papers, you can generate:

• Blogs (Yes, you are being content-marketed to at this very moment.)
• E-newsletters
• Articles
• E-books
• Case studies
• Webinars
• Podcasts
• Videos

I’m sure I left something off this list.

Also, thanks to the near-ubiquitous presence of social media, there are now many more ways to promote your content once it’s ready for public consumption. Lastly – and this may be the most important point of all – there is now fantastic technology available to help you track, monitor, guide, and engage people once they’ve accessed your content. Done right, content marketing really is an end-to-end solution.

I’ll probably spend at least a couple more weeks on content marketing, but for now, I’ll leave you with this. Content marketing is soft marketing. It’s not about pitching product; it’s about establishing brand presence and thought leadership. The urge to pitch product at every possible juncture is strong for most marketers. Resist this temptation in your content marketing efforts or you will fail.

That is all.

NFL, UAL and the Psychology of Punishing Your Customers

by John San Filippo, jmsb@johnsanfilippo.com
www.johnsanfilippo.com

It didn't take Roger Goodell's handling of the Ray Rice fiasco to convince me that NFL folk aren't the sharpest tools in the shed. That's because I'm a Charger fan -- have been for decades -- even when Norv Turner was the head coach. And that means I've supported some pretty crappy Charger teams. That also means I've missed plenty of home games that were blacked out on local television. Yes, the NFL punished me a number of times for supporting my then-lousy Chargers.

Thankfully, the FCC recently woke and abolished government-sanctioned NFL blackouts forever. And the NFL objected. Of course the NFL objected. Why wouldn't they? They're idiots. If they weren't idiots, they wouldn't need the FCC to tell them that blackouts are a dumb idea.

Let's look more closely at NFL blackouts and you'll see what I mean.

Why do NFL games get blacked out? Because not enough people buy tickets to the game. Why in the world would that happen? Because the team in question isn't doing very well. Or put another way, people don't buy whatever you're selling (tickets) if you're putting out an inferior product (a bad team). How many times was I penalized by the NFL because the Spanos boys thought it was a smart idea to hire a losing head coach?

When games are blacked out, at least in San Diego, it seems like it's always by a margin of about 5,000 or so tickets. There are millions of people in the greater San Diego area, and while I'd never claim that they're all Charger fans, I know a lot more than 5,000 are. I'm likewise pretty sure that many of them will never go to a Charger game.

Are these bad fans? Far from it. Mostly they're just fans who can't afford to spend a good $300 for an afternoon at Qualcomm Stadium. I'm sure the NFL still makes good money off of these fans. They deserve to see their team play.

Then there's the totally ridiculous blackout of preseason games. Games that don't even matter. Games that many of the biggest stars don't play in. Games that the NFL should be using to get people excited about the coming season instead of pissing them off!

To the demise of NFL blackouts I can only say, "It's about time."

As I type this, I'm on a less-than-half-full flight to New Orleans, flying United. Right in front of me are 12 empty exit row seats. Why are they still empty when we're halfway to New Orleans? Because even on an empty United flight, you have to pay extra to sit in an exit row. I know because I asked. At least I saved myself the embarrassment and asked first. One guy who foolishly assumed he could take an empty seat in an empty row got told to go back where he came from.

Let's examine possible outcomes here. If United let me sit in one of those seats without paying extra for it, one of two things would happen: Either the experience would confirm my original assessment that an exit row isn't worth an extra $85, or I'd like it so much that I'd spring for the extra $85 next time. In other words, UAL would either break even or win -- they couldn't lose.

However, the two possible results of their current policy are very different. When I'm denied access to a perfectly good empty seat, I'm either going to feel neutral about it, or I'm going to be ticked that United is so petty and short-sighted. Guess which one I'm feeling right now? UAL can only break ever or lose.

What the NFL and UAL seem unable to grasp is that more and more, success in business isn't about nickel-and-diming your customers to death. It's about building long-term relationships that generate recurring revenue for years and years to come. It's about developing brand loyalty in your customer base.

Call me stubborn. I'd never go to a game just because it's blacked out, because I refuse to be bullied by the NFL. And given the choice of UAL or, say, American, I'll choose American because I've always been treated well there. I assume (perhaps as foolishly as the guy who tried to get a free "upgrade") there are others like me.

The lesson? It's simple. If for whatever reason, you find yourself unable to fill your stadium or fill your airplane, don't take it out on your customers. Make them feel good today and they'll stand by you through whatever comes tomorrow.

That is all.

If You Build It, They Won’t Come.

by John San Filippo, jmsb@johnsanfilippo.com
www.johnsanfilippo.com

This has happened to me a number of times. Maybe it’s happened to you, too.

You stumble across a hole-in-the-wall restaurant you never even noticed before. The food is absolutely fantastic. The employees treat you like family. And the prices make it possible to take the whole crew out for dinner without breaking the bank.

Then one day you show up hungry as can be, only to find locked doors and a “closed” sign. What went wrong?

Most likely, the owners suffered from what I call “Field of Dreams” syndrome. They thought that if they created a great restaurant, people would magically appear at their door. In other words, they thought they didn’t need and/or couldn’t afford marketing. Truth be told – and as time proved – they couldn’t afford to not market.

Of course, “Field of Dreams” syndrome isn’t limited to just the food-service industry. In fact, I see quite a bit of it in the financial technology space. Companies large and small view marketing as somewhat of an extravagant expense – a nice-to-have rather than a must-have. The real fallacy here is looking at marketing as an expense at all.

If you had purchased 1,000 shares of Apple stock in 2003, it would have cost you about $14,000. That’s not chump change. However, if you had held it until now, it would be worth around $1.4M. Please, please tell me if you think there’s a single person on this entire planet who would moan and groan about the expense of having to shell out $14,000 for Apple stock, given this scenario. Clearly any sane person would view this as an investment, not an expense. And they’d be damned happy about it.

With that thought in mind, it blows me away that companies grumble at the thought of putting money into marketing – an endeavor that’s proven to help grow companies and contribute to the bottom line. Marketing is an investment and – executed properly – it carries a measurable and favorable ROI. If your marketing isn’t making you money, you’re doing it wrong. There’s no other way to say it.

The big question is: How much should you really be spending on marketing? Google around and you’ll find varying opinions, but they all seem to fall within the range of 5-10 percent of total revenue. And in fact, that appears to be what B2B companies are actually spending. A survey conducted by CMOsurvey.org based on 2013 data showed that in the B2B sector, both product and service companies spent about eight percent of total revenue on marketing. That’s across all revenue sizes.

Interestingly, it was the smallest companies – those with less than $25M in revenue – that spent the most on marketing as a percentage of revenue. These companies spent over 11 percent of revenue on marketing. Incidentally, the lowest spending revenue range was $500M-$1B, at only 3.5 percent.

Is your marketing investment at least somewhere in the general ballpark of the numbers I shared above? If not, do you think it’s because you know something everybody else doesn’t, or because everybody else knows something you don’t? I hate to break it to you (okay, honestly I don’t), but if you’re under-investing in marketing, you’re really doing your company a disservice.

You know the old saying. You have to spend money to make money. That’s not exactly true. You have to invest money to make money. And when you invest wisely in marketing, you can make more money than you ever thought possible.

That is all.

Print Is Dead?

by John San Filippo, jmsb@johnsanfilippo.com
www.johnsanfilippo.com

"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." – advertising and marketing pioneer John Wanamaker

And so it’s been for the 100 years or so since these words were first spoken. Marketers know that, on the whole, traditional advertising works. However, using print advertising as an example, it’s very hard to know which ad, in which edition of which publication, pushed that customer to the next level. That’s because marketing has always been a cumulative endeavor.

Now along comes digital marketing with its promise of precise targeting and precise measurability. Digital marketing is truly awesome. You can track and monitor the online behaviors of customers and prospects, see exactly which programs are working and which ones aren’t, refine and redefine your strategy, and in the case of Google AdWords and other PPC venues, only pay when you get some kind of actual result.

Who needs print advertising when you have digital, right? It’s tempting to look at the struggles of the newspaper industry and declare that print is in its death throes. But is it really all print or just newspapers?

Newspapers used to be the most efficient way to find out what’s going on now (or more accurately, what went on yesterday). Today I can click on Google News any time of the day or night and find out what’s happened in the last 15 minutes. So it makes sense, given what people were trying to accomplish with newspapers, that the majority of readers would gravitate to online news.

However, it’s a different story for magazines, and trade magazines in particular. According to Statista (www.statista.com), trade magazine ad revenues understandably took a big dip in 2009, but have continued to steadily rebound ever since. What’s more, trade magazine ad revenue is expected to continue that trend through at least 2016. If you’re a doubter of print advertising, I’d argue that the people spending those dollars know something you don’t, namely that print advertising works.

Sure it might work, but digital works better, right? After all, you can track and measure digital to a degree not possible with print.

Not so fast. Trackability and measurability don’t make a particular form of advertising more effective, just more convenient for marketers. It’s easy to take digital marketing results to the bean counters and say, “Hey, look what we got for our money.” The same can’t be said for print – but that doesn’t mean print is ineffective.

There seems to be a trend away from print advertising in the fintech space. Just thumb through your favorite trade pub and you’ll see what I mean. Many big names are conspicuously absent. I suppose there’s safety in numbers. If your competitors aren’t spending money on print, why should you?

Marketing is all about differentiation. So here’s a bold prediction: At some point, some fintech company with a few dollars to spend is going to realize that it can differentiate itself from the pack by simply including some print ads as part of its larger marketing strategy. If you’re the only one doing it, you’re going to stand out. And if you’re the first one doing it, you’ll enjoy the luxury of looking at all your competitors through your rearview mirror.

That is all.

We Don't Need No Stinking Social Media Strategy

by John San Filippo, jmsb@johnsanfilippo.com
www.johnsanfilippo.com

There are two popular schools of thought in the B2B marketing space when it comes to social media, and fintech marketing is a perfect case in point.

 

One school says that, while social media may be great for marketing frozen yogurt, running shoes or discount vacation packages, it's really incapable of moving the needle in a B2B environment. Sure, create a half-assed Facebook page so you can put the little "F" logo on your website, but don't bother putting any real effort into it. After all, social media never sold a core data processing system, for example, and probably never will.

 

The other school says that every business must have a strong social media strategy and those who don't, move forward at their own peril.

 

Being the contrarian that I am, I of course think that students of both schools should be riding the short bus.

 

First of all, completely ignoring social media is a bad idea, no matter what business you're in. I always remind people that B2B is really a misnomer. Your business doesn't sell products and services to other businesses. Your sales and marketing team sells products and services to people who run other businesses. In other words, it's always about people selling to other people. And all people are social. Why wouldn't you try to connect with your potential buyers in a digitally social setting?

 

Where I take exception with the idea of a "strong social media strategy" is the implication that social media should be managed separately from the rest of your marketing -- that you can hire a college intern to tweet or twiddle or twittify or whatever you call it, without much regard for the rest of your marketing program, and that should be all you need.

 

Let's be clear here. Social media is a tactic, or I suppose, a collection of interrelated tactics. Strategy is the thoughtful combining of available tactics to create a unique program with measurable objectives. So what you need is what you've always needed: a strong and comprehensive marketing strategy. 

 

That means combining all the tactical resources you have at your disposal -- including social media. In some situations, social might take center stage; in others, its role may be minor. But social media should always be used as an integrated component of your overall marketing program.

 

Social media is, well, social. It doesn't want to be locked in a closet with your intern. It wants to mix and mingle with all your other marketing tactics. Set your social media free!

 

That is all.

Of Fans and Brands

by John San Filippo, jmsb@johnsanfilippo.com
www.johnsanfilippo.com

This past weekend, I went to Target to buy a new fan for the house. For the size I wanted, Target offered two options: a Honeywell fan for $15, or a Vornado fan for $45. Which brand did I want?

First I considered the two names just on their own merits. Honeywell as a name for a fan says absolutely nothing to me. What’s a Honeywell? A hole where bees hang out? Even with no prior knowledge of Honeywell as a company, it’s pretty clear that this is a case of a brand being foolishly extended into the home fan market. In other words, it’s obvious that whatever the company does, it doesn’t make most of its money selling fans.

But what about Vornado? Now that’s a name for a fan! Clearly this name combines the words vortex and tornado. I’ll be perfectly honest here. I’m not really sure what a vortex is. I do know that every time I see this word, it always seems to be mentioned in conjunction with some sort of spiraling motion. And everyone knows what a tornado is.

A fan that can turn my living room into a spiraling tornado? That’s exactly the kind of fan I was looking for. One point for Vornado.

Of course, I wanted to look beyond the names themselves to the brands they actually represent.

What do I know about Honeywell? Right or wrong, my belief is that Honeywell is like a GE or a Westinghouse; they make a lot of different things for a lot of different industries, both large and small. How big a role does the fan business play in Honeywell’s bottom line? Probably not very big. Or put another way, I doubt very much that Honeywell puts a lot of effort into producing a top-notch fan. When I consider the probable margin on a $15 fan, I have to wonder why a company the size of Honeywell even bothers.

What do I know about Vornado? Absolutely nothing! So I turned the box over to see what I could learn. As best I can tell from the packaging – which admittedly may not tell the whole story, but nevertheless tells a great brand story – Vornado is a small company in Kansas that specializes in (you guessed it) fans. It only makes sense that a company that specializes in fans would make a better fan. One more point for Vornado.

What about price, though? Is a Vornado fan really worth three times as much as a Honeywell fan? I think that in the age of Walmart, people have been conditioned to reach for the cheapest item… I take that back. What I really think is that in the age of Walmart, many marketers believe that people have been conditioned to reach for the cheapest item. Clearly this is not the case – at least not universally.

Consider the Lexus brand. Is a Lexus really that much better than a Toyota? I honestly don’t know. However, by branding its luxury line differently and adding several thousand dollars to the price tag, Toyota has convinced me to believe that a Lexus is significantly better than a garden-variety Toyota. A certain segment of the consumersphere will always be willing to pay a premium price for a premium brand.

This isn’t anything new or shocking. Even Ray Zalinsky knew that the public would be willing to pay a premium price for a supposedly premium brake pad. That’s why he was so anxious to get his greedy, little hands on the Callahan Auto brand.

In short, as a brand for home fans, Vornado scored a third and final point over Honeywell, based in no small part on its higher price.

By now, it should be pretty clear that I ended up choosing Vornado over Honeywell. But here’s one thing I bet you didn’t guess: So impressed was I with the Vornado brand, I also bought a smaller $15 Vornado in addition to the $45 model.

I went to Target in search of a fan on which I could have spent $15. Thanks to better branding, I instead purchased two fans for a total spend of $60. I think there’s a branding lesson in there somewhere.

That is all.

Brand Extension Run Amok: Why I Hate Amazon

by John San Filippo, jmsb@johnsanfilippo.com
www.johnsanfilippo.com

People often tell me how much they love, love, love Amazon. Frankly, I don't get it.

I find the Amazon ecosystem a little confusing. On amazon.com, you can buy things from Amazon directly and you can buy things from other sellers. And you have to be cognizant of which is which, because the rules are different for each. It's like walking into Macy's and being told that blue-tag items qualify for free gift-wrapping, but green-tag items don't. Heaven forbid you should assemble an outfit for your sister's birthday out of both blue- and green-tag items.

I also had one bad shopping experience on Amazon. I had a confirmed order later canceled due to a "problem" with my credit card. This is a card that I use almost daily, so when the credit card company told me they could see no problem at their end, I could only place the blame on Amazon. This little blunder almost cost my granddaughter a Christmas present. And when it comes to gifts for my grandchildren, I don't give second chances.

All of this is enough to make me, as a consumer, dislike Amazon. However, it's as a marketer that I truly hate this company. Why? Because, IMHO, the Amazon brand is an absolute train wreck.

First, let's look at a couple of the classic brand examples. When I say Coca-Cola, you think of soda pop. When I say Cadillac, you think of American luxury cars. When I say Orville Redenbacher, you think of popcorn. That's how a good brand is supposed to work. But when I say Amazon, what do you think of?

Twenty years ago, this was an easy question to answer. If I said Amazon in the early days of the company, you would have thought of books. Period. Then Amazon started selling CDs ... and toys ... and power tools ... and bedroom linens ... and (insert absolutely any product here). There are also Amazon's e-readers, tablets, set-top boxes and now even cell phones. And let's not forget Amazon's cloud computing business.

So I ask you again: What do you think of when I say Amazon? To me, the Amazon brand says nothing. In fact, it says worse than nothing. To me, the Amazon brand says, "We're greedy sons of guns who want our fingers in every pie in the bakery." That's not a brand that instills any loyalty in me.

Don't get me wrong. Amazon isn't the only company to fall victim to crazy brand extension. Far from it. Just look at the American beer market. In fact, just look at the Budweiser brand. Under the Budweiser banner, Anheuser-Busch markets Budweiser, Bud Light, Bud Light Platinum, Bud (marketed in Europe), Budweiser Select, Budweiser Select 55, Bud Ice, Bud Ice Light, Budweiser Brew Masters' Private Reserve, Bud Dry, Bud Silver, Bud Extra, Budweiser Chelada, Bud Light Chelada, Budweiser American Ale, Budweiser NA, Bud Light Lime, Bud Light Lime Ritas, Bud Light Golden Wheat, and Budweiser 66.

So what do you think of when I say Budweiser? I think I'll have a Dos Equis.

Insane brand extensions like these are oh, so tempting. Marketers justify them by claiming that they're smartly capitalizing on the main brand's existing equity. That's probably true to a point. It may very well be the Budweiser name that gets Brew Master's Private Reserve noticed (assuming it does get noticed now and then). However, each brand extension also diminishes the primary brand. In the case of Budweiser, when you factor in that beer is not a rapidly growing market, it's hard for me to believe that crowding the market with 20+ variations of Budweiser will do Anheuser-Busch any long-term good. In fact, it seems like a very expensive waste of money, and ultimately that cherished brand equity.

If you're only interested in filling the coffers today, go ahead and ignore your brand. Millions have been made doing just that. On the other hand, if you're interested in long-term, sustained success, know your brand and be true to it.

That is all.