Small Business Marketing: Influentia

This is what viral videos are all about

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HP has nailed it with these three viral videos, targeted to small business customers. They are funny, well-written, of high quality and get the point across in a memorable way. But unlike many viral videos, these also have a pseudo call to action, which many companies forget to include.

Life without HP: Car wash

Life without HP: Bubble wrap

Life without HP: Experts

What more can you ask for?

(Disclosure: I work for a division of HP, Logoworks)

Why your small business needs a full-time marketer

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If you've ever wondered why your small business might need a full-time marketer, here are 33 reasons to get one now:

1. You have no website, logo, business cards or brand identity to speak of.
2. You don't know for sure that $6.99 is the best price to sell your home-made, organic soap.
3. You have never sent an html email to a customer.
4. You don't know what your competitors are doing better or worse than you.
5. You've never heard of SEO, SEM (or PPC for that matter).
6. Your brochure consists of prices and descriptions written on a paper napkin during your business lunch.
7. You think your advertisement worked because a lot of people have called in. They'll probably be buying sometime.
8. You have never conducted any primary research to find out what you should be doing that you're not.
9. You have no sales leads.
10. No one you talk to (besides your spouse and business partner) has ever heard of your company before.
11. Your customer relationships management consist of calling them regularly to ask them if they want to buy any more yet.
12. You stay awake at night wondering why no one is buying your great products/services.
13. You stay awake at night wondering if you have the right products or services.
14. You stay awake at night wondering if you're targeting the right customers.
15. You've never been in the black.
16. Marketing plan. What marketing plan?
17. You don't know what direct mail is.
18. You think advertising means being on TV and in magazines.
19. You have asked your doctor if you should be concerned about the "viral marketing" disease.
20. You think marketers are akin to used car salesman and Fox News.
21. You have no way of knowing how your customers came to you or how to get them to buy more.
22. Your customers buy from you once and never come back.
23. You cannot describe your average customer.
24.  Your last "marketing guy" demanded a large salary and brought in nothing.
25. Your small business marketing consists of attending chamber of commerce meetings and giving out a business card at least once a week.
26. You've emailed everyone you know about your business. Why haven't they bought anything yet?
27. You're thinking about closing up shop.
28. You don't get what brand awareness has to do with sales.
29. You think branding is just for Coca-Cola and ranchers.
30. People confuse your company with your competition.
31. You don't think you can afford to advertise.
32. You feel like you're in the dark when it comes to making important pricing and product decisions.
33. You identify with this list.

Marketers, if they are seasoned and competent, can truly take your business to the next level, help you understand who your target customers are, how to appeal to them, how to build relationships with them and how to increase their lifetime value. A good marketer will do a lot of testing to help you find out what works, what does not and how to reach your customers in the right way, with a message that will resonate well. It's never too late to start.

Marketing your small business is a business all in itself. Make sure you know how to do it. Subscribe to the Influentia Blog for daily tips and updates that will help you take your business to the next level.

Santa still endorses Coke after 75 years

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The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO) has been using Santa Claus for more than 75 years to sell their classic beverage. Here's a little history:

Coca-Cola commissioned Chicago artist Haddon Sundblom (Bio) in 1931 to illustrate several lifelike versions of Santa Claus for advertisements to boost sales during the normally slow winter months. Sundblom's first work appeared in publications such as the Saturday Evening Post (below), Ladies Home Journal and National Geographic, and it was so well received that Coca-Cola hired him to paint one each year from 1931 to 1964.

From Coke:

"[In the 1920s], many people thought of Coca-Cola as a drink only for warm weather. The Coca-Cola Company began a campaign to remind people that Coca-Cola was a great choice in any month. This  began with the 1922 slogan "Thirst Knows No Season," and continued with a campaign connecting a true icon of winter - Santa Claus - with the beverage."

What a brilliant move; taking a nationally recognized (and not trademarked) image and using it to sell your products. The campaign has resulted in instant brand recognition, created a strong emotional connection and invented probably one of the first "celebrity" endorsements of a product in marketing. The Coca-Cola Santa Claus still lives on today.*

Small businesses take note: marketing your product is all about how you utilize people's perceptions of their world and relate your products to that world. You don't have the advertising budget of Coke, but you do have the ability to use well-recognized images, sounds, themes etc and connect them to your business.

For daily doses of interesting ways you can give your small business marketing success, subscribe to the Influentia blog.

*See many of Sundblom's original illustrations here (sorry about the ads), and read all about Cokelore here.

Why the generic brand feels generic

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Generic brands always feel inferior to name brands. Why?

Every major grocery store has a line of generically branded products (think Western Family, Kroger Value and Great Value). They are usually placed on the highest and lowest shelves since stores make so much money from other brands vying for the eye level shelf positions. They are priced way lower than name brands and normally taste slightly different from name brands.

But what stands out most to me is the horrible designs generic brands boast. Compared to name brand products, generic brand's designs are way, way under par. Consider the evidence. If prices on these two groups of products were the same, which one would you rather buy?

This one...

...or this one?

I think the answer is obvious. The fact that generic brands don't invest in good quality packaging and design tells me they are banking on people purchasing their products solely based on price and are undervaluing what good packaging design can do. Maybe they've done the market research and found that design is not relevant, but my gut tells me if there is an opportunity here for competitors (especially small businesses) to compete strongly in this space. If you invest in good packaging design and have basically the same products, you have an edge on traditional generic brands.

If you'd like more small business marketing tips, news and insights, subscribe to the Influentia blog for regular nuggets of marketing insight.

Newsflash: Teens spend a lot of money

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Teens spend more each year than Mexico makes in annual exports, according to a recent report from FairCredit.org. What's more:

• Teens spend 98% of their money, saving just 2%.
• The average teen spends $104/week or $5,408/year.
• Children's spending tripled in the 1990s.
• Teens spent an average of $141 billion as a group each year.

But this gigantic market opportunity turns out to also be one of the most difficult to crack. Market researchers spend billions each year to find out how to market to a group that hates being marketed to and who doesn't respond well to traditional marketing.

If you haven't seen PBS's fantastic documentary, called Merchants of Cool, on the topic, it's an absolute must-see that will put into perspective the lengths some businesses will go to to crack the teen market (full legth video online here).

101 dumbest moments in business

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If you're a PR or marketing professional looking for some new clients, Fortune has just compiled a list of 101 companies that could use your help. Called the 101 Dumbest Moments in Business, the article highlights some of the funniest and most interesting gaffes people and companies have made over the last year. 

A few of my favorites:

• Eli Lilly created a chewable, beef-flavored Prozac for dogs (article).
• Redux Beverages names its energy drink Cocaine, you know, so kids will think it's cool (article and FDA Warning letter).
• Jay-Z's line of jackets labeled as having "Faux fur" actually contain dog fur. The Humane Society is outraged (article).
• Pizza Hut hires Jessica Simpson for an ad spot to sell their Cheesy Bites Pizza, but neglects to find out she is allergic to wheat, tomatoes and cheese (article).

Here is the full list. It will make you feel better about forgetting the name of the guy who visited your office from the corporate HQ.

(Note: This annual list is normally compiled and published by Business 2.0 magazine, but after they went belly-up, parent company CNN passed the torch to Fortune Magazine).

[Photo courtesy of Technology Review.]

How much are your eyes worth?

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We are officially one step closer to a Minority Report world. From Psycology Today:

"A British company has developed a small, inexpensive eye tracker that can be attached to store displays or billboards to count how many times they're viewed by passersby. Soon, real-world ads may be sold by the eyeball, just like their online counterparts."

There are several companies working on this technology, including Canada-based Xuuk (See Wired article), who claim to be able to have reached the holy grail of advertising measurement by tracking all the eyes that view a particular roadside billboard while driving by in their car. If it actually works, this could change the way we track and measure outdoor advertising forever.

I wonder if they will be able to track eyes through tinted side windows in cars, sunglasses, or polarized glasses lenses. And are children's eyes, who presumably stare out the windows-and at billboards-more than an adult driver's, worth the same?

Also,does this mean in the future I could get a ticket  for not having my eyes on the road while driving on the freeway?

Small Business Tips: 7 Ways to Outshine the Big Guys This Season

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Many small businesses have a rough time competing during the holidays, especially when it comes to going head to head with large companies. Here are seven ways you can outshine much larger competitors this season:

1. Focus on customer service
Large retailers seldom have high employee to customer ratios, which leaves customers on their own to read product labels, compare prices and try to figure out the right gifts to buy. Having strong customer service with a knowledgeable staff will go a long way to make your customers happy. It can also increase how much a customer will spend with you and increase referrals.

2. Have a generous return policy
While larger companies are improving in this area, small businesses can always do better. Offer cash returns (and hand out a coupon for your store with it), give out gift receipts with purchases and consider allowing returns for products you sell even if they didn’t purchase it from you.

You can also offer to ship defective products back to the manufacturer for customers so they don’t have to worry about it.

3. Give referring customers great deals
Few large retailers have good customer referral programs, so there is a lot of room for small businesses to stand out in this area. Provide strong incentives for your customers to refer business to you, such as an $xx credit for every $xx of business they refer.

4. Match Prices
This may be tough to do, especially if you’re competing with big box retailers like Wal-Mart or Toys R Us, but remember you don’t have to match every price for every product. Simply choose a few select products and be willing to match prices on those. Most of the time, price matching is a nice way to get people in the door, and only a small percentage of people actually do enough homework or ask you to match once they’re ready to buy.

5. Honor manufacturer’s coupons
Many manufacturers offer discounts on products during the holidays. Do your research and advertise your prices based on those discounts. That way you can make good profits and still lower your prices.

6. Market your products uniquely
Create packages out of products you already sell (think Bath & Body Works) and offer them at a discounted rate. You can also partner with another small business to create unique product offers that customers cannot find anywhere else. Exclusive, compelling offers can create a lot of business if you do it the right way.

7. Offer Free (unbranded) gift wrapping
Many large companies already do this, but you can stand out by not making people wait in long lines to get their gifts wrapped, by offering to ship gifts to recipients for free, and for not wrapping things up in paper covered in your company’s logo.

Bottom line, make shopping with you a delight and you’ll have no problem standing out from the big guys this Holiday season.

This is sad

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The dullest blog in the world is much, much more interesting & entertaining than watching TV reruns (See I'll Be Skipping the Reruns and Watching the Ads). I actually find it very amusing to read.

How is it possible that this is the case?

Now Rupert, about that print subscription...

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I think we all saw this one coming. Fresh on the heels of the New York Times’ announcement that they’ll no longer be charging visitors for full access to their website comes the news that the WSJ is following suit and ending their online subscription business model.

Said Rupert Murdoch to the NYT:

We are studying it and we expect to make that [subscriptions] free, and instead of having one million, having at least 10 million-15 million in every corner of the earth.

The Journal has just under a million online paid subscribers now, but certainly most of the revenue the site is generating comes from advertisers, just as it does with the print version of the paper.

Just to put this into perspective, a full-page color print ad in the WSJ can easily run more than $50,000 for one day (A full page color ad in a monthly magazine like Vanity Fair costs more like $180,000), so with that many more eyeballs looking at your content, imagine the kind of revenue you could generate from advertising with that kind of traffic online.

This is a smart move for the Journal and one that will contribute to the migration of advertisers from traditional to online advertising (See I'll be Skipping the Reruns and Watching the Ads). Hopefully this announcement won't make their already dismal website design even worse. I've also wondered what will happen to paying customers whose subscriptions are suddenly without any value. Will there be mass refunds (I doubt it) or a silent, slow transition?

Now make my print subscription free and I'll be happy.