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.

Case Study: When to rebrand your business

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It has been barely a year since Court TV rolled out with a brand new logo and corporate image, but the cable channel is doing a complete rebrand all over again. Two days ago Court TV announced that starting January 1, they will be known as TruTV to better "describe the kind of programming we do in prime time," according to the channel's executive VP and GM Marc Juris (Full article). TruTV's new lineup will include shows that "would happen whether the cameras were there or not," Juris says, which differentiates them from largely scripted reality TV shows blasting the airwaves.

So is it a smart move to rebrand so soon after recently doing so? Is the Jan 1 launch date a good idea? Does the name really matter, and will rebranding alienate those familiar with the already established brand?

Although it is never easy and it is never a "good" time to take an established brand and change it to a new one, the timing seems to be right for Court TV. The channel is still in a growing stage, adding viewers every quarter for the last two years (something most networks would love to be able to claim). And the network's well-received shows that focus more on true-to-life events has clearly changed the direction the channel is headed.

Alienation when launching a new brand is always risky, but follow examples of good brand changes (a la Cingular > AT&T) and the transition will be smooth. Also look at recent rebranding efforts by other cable networks: OLN > Versus and The Nashville Network > TNN > The National Network > The New TNN > Spike > Spike (new logo).

If you're a small business looking to rebrand, consider the timing, audience, strategy, costs, and long term goals to help you decide if and when to begin launching your new brand.

For regular insights and helpful analysis of real small business marketing, subscribe to the Influentia blog.

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.

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.]

The "Bag a Bird" Thanksgiving Game

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Today we are launching a marketing campaign for Thanksgiving called Bag a Bird. It's a Flash game that allows customers to get discounts on our products. It's fun and I think it will help us stand out from all the noise this week.

Give it a go!

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.

When is a .002% Conversion Considered Good?

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I recently blogged about some research revealing how much more marketers love the latest web 2.0 tools than do small business owners. Now I have seen it for myself.

Yesterday I put on a webinar for small business owners on how to build a strong brand. We had small business marketing author John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing and Rob Marsh, branding expert from Logoworks by HP (where I work). The presentations were excellent and the information was very pertinent to small businesses.

But of the more than 60,000 small business owners who were invited to the webinar, only .75% signed up to attend. And of those who signed up, 25% actually tuned in. That's a "conversion" rate of .002%, which low, but not abysmal for a webinar, from what I'm told. Still, it's disappointing to see that all those small business owners turning down the opportunity to really learn something that can help their businesses.

The truth is, the response and attendance we saw seems to support the thesis that many small business owners don't yet see the value of some of web 2.0 technologies like webinars.

Either that or maybe the topic was simply not as compelling to them as it was to me.

So you're telling me there's a chance

Note: This blog has moved! For continued updates about small business marketing, visit my new blog Manizesto, or subscribe to the Manizesto feed.

Do small business owners get as excited about new communication and web 2.0 tools as I do? Actually, no, according to the latest research from Bredin Business Information. In a sample of more than 300 small businesses, ranging from micro (1-19 employees), small (20-99) and medium (100-499), BBI measured how the companies viewed and used several web 2.0 marketing channels.

The tools looked at were blogs, community forums, email newsletters, interactive tools (whatever that means), podcasts, RSS feeds, social networking sites, webcasts/webinars and wikis.

Here are my takeaways:

• The number one reason small business owners don't use these tools is because they don't see it's value (except with RSS, in which case the number one reason was they don't know how to use it).
• The most positively-viewed tools were also the ones that have been around the longest (and are therefore presumably more understood). Podcasts and RSS feeds ranked lowest (and are also newest).
• Marketers are way more excited about web 2.0 tools than small business owners. That could be for two reasons. First, as mentioned above, they understand the tools better and therefore understand their value proposition, or second, marketers are overestimating their impact and are too nerdy to see that the average small business owner won't ever be interested in using them.
• Small business owners will go to their vendors first when looking for help in growing their small businesses. No surprise there, especially with the other website choices included the media (not trusted) and the government (ditto).

So as these tools stick around, I predict an increase in perceived value and an increase in use among small business owners.