Manhattan Marketing Maven

10 Secrets for Successful Client Service

Marketing is a service business in which the successful players super serve their clients. It requires a hierarchy of behaviors which sublimates your ego even for your dumbest client. It requires you to anticipate and proactively prepare for unseen events that can impact the client’s business and yours in a nanosecond.

Here’s a compilation of the best advice and direction I’ve been given over the years:

Read everything. Don’t just scan it. Read it. Be sure you understand it. Ask questions. Keep asking. Question it. Good ideas come from everyone. Your perspective will help keep us from being too insular.

Demand context. You’ll be asked to do a million things. Many are routine or intuitive. Some are not. If in doubt, ask what we are doing, why, to whom, and how your task fits into the whole scheme of things. Also insist on knowing about priorities – which matters/comes first, second, third.

Be a Hub. We will all be spinning in several directions. You are the hub of the wheel – steady, stable, constant, always in the same place. You’ll have to figure out how to do it.

Get involved. Surf the sites. Know our competitors. Read the paper with us and our clients in mind. Become an online shopper. Notice cool functionality, interesting details, marketing stuff and share it with the team.

Lay out your thinking. As you do more complex projects, don’t assume that everyone knows (or remembers) what you are doing. Lay out the assumptions and hypotheses. Document your approach so we know where you are coming from. The more transparent you are; the better.

Treat everyone like a client. Assume that everyone deserves maximum attentiveness and respect. You’ll never go wrong.

Assume urgency. We move at Internet speed. And deliver service and answers in a New York minute (50 seconds). Assume that every request made is to be done ASAP unless otherwise stated. If too many ASAPs pile up, ask for help in setting priorities.

God is in the details. Every great thing is nothing more than a web of details. Write everything down. Check and double check. Spell check. We are all juggling stuff. We expect you to be on top of things – entirely buttoned up. If we don’t share the details – demand them from us.

Know where we are. Figure out our personalities. Get all our phone, pager, PDA and home numbers in an easily accessible form. Know how and when to reach us throughout the working day. Figure out what you need from us to be productive and happy. Then tell us explicitly. Few of us read minds. All of us want to work in a fun, happy and productive place. Getting there is an individual and collective responsibility and goal.

Build a network. Every organization has a formal structure and table of organization that explains who’s who and what’s what. Every organization also has informal links of friendship and mutual cooperation between people. That really decides who’s who and what’s what. Getting into the informal loop and being a source of help and information to others will expedite your ability to get stuff done and accelerate your productivity and job satisfaction.

Small Viral Campaigns Can Work Well

When viral marketing comes up everyone fantasizes about creating the next global sensation. But viral marketing works very nicely without trying to swing for the fences. There are singles, doubles and triples to be had by mounting smaller viral campaigns.

Why? Because the simplest viral effort begins with selective psycho-demographic targeting amped up by credible delivery from trusted sources. The secret sauce of pass-along marketing is launching the message into an arena by seeding it with the right people who can share it broadly by directing and steering it for you. This requires the sender and the passer-along to have a pre-existing relationship that encourages the parties to help each other.

Consider two recent minor successes:

Talent Recruiting. We needed to find 30 poker players to be extras in several direct response TV commercials. We wanted attractive people who knew how to play Texas Hold 'Em and who would look and react on camera the same way they do when they play in Vegas, AC or in their friend's homes. We were unable to pay the rates or accept the work rules to hire union actors. So we sent personal e-mails to friends asking them to pass along the casting call notice which offered a chance to play hooky from work on a summer Monday, $500 bucks, free lunch, transportation to and from the studio in Long Island and wearable swag.

Four principals pinged 200+ friends. As best we can tell, the e-mails probably reached about 1000 people in the metro New York City area, based on the degrees of separation evidenced by the final cast members. We got 60 interested people in 18 hours. We easily filled the room without having to be too selective or brutal in casting and the final product (see it next week on NBC's "Poker After Dark") is great.

Focus Group Recruiting. For a professional services client we wanted to try out a parlor meeting pitch. We found a well-connected couple known for their robust network of friends, family and business acquaintances and asked them to invite people who were members of the sandwich generation -- raising kids and caring for aging parents-- to their home on a random Wednesday night. The host couple sent personal e-mails to 12 couples and 8 single friends giving them 3 weeks advance notice. In 12 hours, 18 people agreed to come and on the appointed night 14 showed up. The conversation resonated especially well because the hosts pre-sorted the list and zeroed in one people they knew would have a strong emotional and intellectual connection with the subject matter. 

So what does it all mean?

1. A small viral effort can work well and accomplish your goals.

2. You don't necessarily have to create the next must-see video.

3. It's all about targeting.

4. Using personal lists and "From" addresses means greater deliver-ability and opens

5. The more personal the appeal -- the better. The extra spin is a by-product of personal emotional connections.   

Leveraging PR Opportunities: No More Plain Vanilla

In a 24/7 digitally interactive world where everyone is a pundit plain vanilla doesn't sell.

Corporate speak, processed prose and caveatted academic-style rhetoric are DOA; the white noise ignored by millions. In a world where you have to scream and act out to get baseline media attention toeing the party line and imitating Ron Ziegler is a prescription for oblivion.

I'm frustrated by clients who desperately seek the spotlight and when they get it, after Herculean efforts by PR people, squander it by speaking robotically, stonewalling or hedging every syllable. If Jim Cramer is at the far end of the attention-getting spectrum, everyone seeking access to the media, even access to a lowly blog such as this, has to have something sharp, different and interesting to say. Otherwise why bother? Nobody has time for the obvious. Everyone is insistent -- "tell me something I don't know."

I'm not advocating obnoxious behavior, slander or profanity. I'm not insisting that we become a nation of clowns, hucksters or attack dogs; mostly the realm of talk radio. But I am  advocating understanding the context of the media and the appetites of the audience. When you realize that soft news and entertainment rumors get much more traffic, attention and pass-along than hard data and real news that actually impact our lives, it has to shape your thinking about positioning and guide the kind of story angles you pitch.

Unless you are already a well known media commodity, if you are seeking to present yourself as an expert, you have to have an opinion. It has to be factual, relevant and punchy. You've got to speak like a regular guy not like a North Korean functionary. Animation, colorful examples, naming names, judgment calls and different perspectives on topics with media currency are what the media wants to find and the public wants to hear. We're all over plain vanilla.

Raking in Referrals

Getting customers to refer you is the number one business fantasy. Actually getting customers to refer you is the number one business challenge. Nicole Wicks at ReferNow aims to close the gap.

Referrals are every marketer's wet dream. They are powerful, personal, profitable and dirt cheap. Referral customers come in wanting to buy and eager to engage with your brand. It's your game to lose. And its a lot easier and cheaper than trying to efficiently find, convince and close new customers. If you can just get 15% of your happy customers to tell their friends ... who knows how much goodness can result?

But in real life, referrals require customers and businesses to step outside their comfort zones and act pro-actively;.an impossibly difficult task. Customers have to love you so much that they're willing to put their ego on the line for you. Its a very high bar to jump. Many of us have been teased friends who were astounded that we liked a particular brand or who were disappointed by the reception they got or the actual goods and services after such a big buildup.Nobody wants to be a shill or a salesman and many of us have already developed a complex mental system for sorting and filtering the recommendations of friends, relatives and co-workers to optimize politeness and screen out bad taste or different sensibilities.

For employees asking for a referral is a second close; one that could possibly undo the money sale that just transpired. Nobody dares to appear "pushy"and many salespeople feel that customers need to bask in the glow of a purchase and maybe even actually use the product before you hit them up for a referral.

So while it seems like a logical thing to do; it rarely gets done. Enter ReferNow.com a platform for small and medium sized businesses eager to capitalize on happy customers for either  referrals or repeat business.

Based on "the psychology of people" and "old school good manners" this site offers businesses a tool -- basically a software and reporting set-up -- for driving referrals and repeat business for $148/month by making it "as simple as possible for our customers and their customers,"  Nicole claims.

It works just the way you might imagine. The business solicits an e-mail address from a happy customer. Then using the platform to track and report things -- you send the happy customer an e-mail containing an offer that he/she sends to friends. When the friends respond they are directed to a hosted landing page and -- bingo -- a unique code is triggered. Both the new customer and the referring customer get points which they can redeem for stuff, presumably good stuff and stuff they want. Each participating business determines what the stuff is though Nicole advises them to offer something unique or a little extra by saying, "a referral customer is a free customer, so don't be stingy."

So far in the quest for referrals, they've learned:

• The price of referrals is a function of industry and is related to the buying cycles
• Cash is everyone's favorite incentive. A $25 Gift card = cash.
• Electronics -- as incentives -- are yesterday
• Customers like locally-based rewards

Working with 100 plus clients, the site, in its start-up stage,offers platform access,concepting and consulting. The cost is low because ReferNow aims to be the little guy's simple CRM tool. The platform can handle 150,000 unique users so they're aiming high.  Reports are exportable to Salesforce.com and SugarCRM.

Have Women Made Business Better or Even Different?

Women in business are in the news. But I can't measure or calculate women's contribution to the business world they fought so hard to enter. 

From the dramatic opening weekend box office of the Sex and the City movie to women corporate directors ringing the NASDAQ closing bell to Fortune Magazine's "Most Powerful Women" dinner and its New York echo in Sunday's New York Post everybody seems to be celebrating women by making lists of the women who count. It's a publicists dream come true. Though all this hoopla makes me yearn for a list of women leaders who've crashed and burned.

Amidst all this hubbub Newsweek is convening a lunch next week of 25 prominent businesswomen to flesh out ideas for their Women and Leadership issue and its attending conference slated for October. In helping my friend ace publicist Diane Terman prepare for these round tables, we began to try to access the real impact of women in business. But beyond the initial feminist agenda of access, ascendancy and equal opportunity its hard for me to describe the impact of millions of women in business.   

If you ask the fundamental questions, it becomes quickly clear than since Betty Friedan threw down the gauntlet, women have

• Gained access to virtually every business and industry
• Overcome bias, discrimination and achieved equal opportunity under the law
• Made strides toward getting equal work for equal pay and toward gaining leadership roles
• Changed the definition of acceptable behavior in the workplace
• Succeeded in precedent-setting wage discrimination and sexual harassment suits
• Redefined maternity leave, some healthcare issues and ideas about flexible hours and job sharing

And while nobody can say that the revolution is over or that the situation is at a fair and completely equal end state, there is reason to believe that if we keep doing what we've been doing, women will take their place in the pantheon of business elites as leaders, innovators and drivers. In some industries women already hold up much more than "half the sky" of the Chinese proverb.

But have women changed the world of business or has the world of business changed women?

Take the macro view and consider the qualities usually ascribed to women -- compassion, cooperation, consideration, nurturing, diligence, collaboration, intuition and creativity. Now ask yourself; has business enjoyed a massive infusion of these qualities or have women adopted the competitive, aggressive qualities of their male counterparts? Then ask yourself; have women changed the way business is conducted? Have they introduced new processes or new organizational forms? Have they found new ways to create or unleash shareholder value? Have they brought new leadership styles or new leadership results to the forefront?

Having worked extensively with and for women, I've witnessed and worked with great individuals and I've worked with and witnessed women who were the worst. But on a macro level, I'm hard pressed to to enumerate how women have added to or changed the game.     

    

Oogling and Googling

Am I the only one who Googles everybody I am going to meet or have just met for the first time? Am I the last living paranoid, yenta, busybody ... or what?

I'm interviewing a bunch of marketing and PR agencies. I'm sending out RFPs and going on go-see meetings. You'd think that before I showed up these ace marketers would check me out, not necessarily because I'm such a big shot, but just to anticipate who I am, what i know, what I might say, what I might ask or what topics might either delight me as a prospective client or send me round the bend. I was genuinely surprised and not a little miffed when several potential partners spoke to me as if I had no understanding of anything digital and condescendingly ran me through the basics of PR.  You'd think my bald head and age spots would give them a minimal cue. 

Am I the only one who thinks knowing somebody's background, demography and work history might better prepare me to engage them professionally or socially? Am I the last guy who thinks that a little advance prep might make the pitch perfect? Could I be the last serious fan of Jewish geography and other forms of "who knows who"? Have I inherited my mother's insatiable voyeuristic interest in the personal details of random people or am I the lost bastard child of J. Edgar Hoover running amok with the richness of personal information available online?

Okay. I was an Eagle Scout and "Be Prepared" was our motto. But how can anyone seriously interested in engagement, connection or interaction, not to mention a closed sale, ignore what is available absolutely free in three clicks on Google, LinkedIn, ZoomInfo, Facebook or any number of social networks or research sites?

If my single friends Google their blind J-dates in anticipation of a first date, why wouldn't hungry agencies Google prospective clients in anticipation of a first meeting?

Struggling with Online Ads

Online ads -- everything other than search -- are the stepchildren of the online marketing boom. Many of us are struggling with each facet of the medium  -- sizes, formats, functionality/rich media and creative  -- in an attempt to find a way to better connect with prospects and customers in cost efficient ways.

Instinctively we know that display ads in context based on behavioral serving criteria make logical sense. The same instinct signals that something's not quite where it needs to be. That also seems to be the feeling among attendees at iMedia's Agency Summit in Austin. Their real-time answers to statements during a presentation documents the ambivalence for the medium that we are all struggling with.

Here's what they said ...

Online advertising is still semi-nowhere. 54% found some truth in this statement another 10% said its not far from the truth. Anyone who is faced with shaping a campaign gets this queasy feeling when working with display ad formats or concepts. We all know everyone hates banners, pop-ups and pop-unders and while text ads usually yield a positive ROI, they have very little branding value and are entirely forgettable.

Agency Relationships are Decent. 47% say its difficult with room for improvement, 46% say its cooperative but could improve. So the problem isn't that we don't get along.

But Agency Types are Young and Inexperienced. We just want more from the buyers. So say the sellers, 44% of whom say the economics of the agency business mandate young newbies as buyers and 43% say they are trying but have a long way to go. Its a shame nobody asked how young and green the sellers are. So the medium is run day-to-day by young people trying to learn their jobs.

Big Ideas Come from Clients. 52% say agency-media-client cooperation scores with clients. This is a thinly disguised admission that clients are driving the boat feeding the agencies and the publishers what trhey want and how they want it.

We're So-So on Data. In an industry steeped in data, 69% say we are average, 29% say we suck. Is it that surprising that online ads aren't selling or working if the people buying and selling them aren't fluent and confident with the metrics?

Hybrid Metrics Rule. Metric messiness is evidenced by 58% who say they combine campaign and industry metrics to figure out whats going on. This answer sounds good and logical. But its a dodge. People genuinely on top of metrics, the buttoned-up ones who really know how to optimize every penny have ironclad metrics formulas. These are not hybrids; they are absolutes.

Low Confidence in Online Panels. Asked if online panels provide validation and adequate research support, 40% say yes, but just as a starting point. Another 46% say no, they want an alternative. So 8 in 10 practitioners don't rely on online panels as a backstop or as a way to triangulate what really happens online.

Nobody Likes the Last Ad Viewed. 53% say the reigning scoring metric is misleading. 38% say its just a place to start. DM'ers say its the measure of success but 91% of summit attendees don't want to be held to the clicks that result from the last ad viewed. If this doesn't erode your confidence in online advertising, nothing will.

      

Marketing to the Hyperconnected

Those geeks juggling half a dozen devices have a new moniker -- hyperconnected -- thanks to a survey of 2400 working adults in 17 countries sponsored by Nortel and conducted by IDC. These totally wired people are the vanguard of the Web 2.0 proletariat; the earliest of early adapters among the 1.2 billion humans now surfing the Internet.

You know the type. Concentrated in high tech and finance in urban centers they are 60% male, primarily managers, mostly under 35, two-thirds have Wi-Fi at home. These are the people, who juggle an average of 7 devices and 9 applications, rush to embrace iPhones, iPods and every new gadget. They define themselves and draw validation, status and a measure of cool from their hyperconnectivity. And this group, now pegged at 16% of the global information workforce is growing and growing fast with another 36% expected to join them soon.

But the implications of a hyperconnected lifestyle for marketers aren't clear. In fact, connectivity per se can obscure rather than illuminate the positioning, messaging and media tasks that already confound us. Consider a few possibilities.

Constant Streaming.If all-news media makes you crazy, imagine an even bigger torrent of data from a growing number of sources over a growing number of devices anywhere you go. The hyperconnected point to a lifestyle that is always on, always available and always connected. They make an incredible number of clicks or calls from cars, restaurants, vacations, bed and even church. They are they guys who've made the streets an eavesdropper's delight. This makes it easier and tougher to target them. The merry-go-round never stops. Separating content even opt-in desired or desirable content from background noise or filtering or scheduling content becomes an even greater challenge.

Instant Gratification Everywhere. If you are always on and always linked you want everything now. If patience is already frayed by the variables of service delivery and personality, imagine a whole world demanding everything right now, whenever the mood strikes. Who can possibly deliver on these expectations?

All Work-All Life-All the Time. For the hyperconnected distinctions between work and private life, between on and off time between public and private and even geographic or temporal boundaries have effectively disappeared. Its funny since many of the hyperconnected tools and applications are supplied by companies but serve both work and personal objectives. This further complicates how we create and deliver messaging and how we conceive and channel media to deliver the pitch.

No QC. There is no survey data connecting hyperconnectivity to hyperproductivity. In fact the more we watch the hyperconnected, the more we'll discover that they have more ways to goof off, hide and sidestep responsibility than we ever imagined. Those "crackberry" addicts are reading work e-mails and checking box scores with equal frequency and intensity. Its about showing how connected you are not how competent you are.    

Perhaps I'm becoming a Luddite, though I fall into the 7% of hyperconnecteds over age 50. But the more I embrace the Web, new devices and new applications, the more I'm seeking more sorting, filtering and thinking. I yearn for less immediate data flow and more consideration, insight and analysis. Its not about speed or quantity its about value and empowerment.

7 Secrets for a Successful Second Marriage

It is surprising that after so many millennia of marriages and in spite of our national obsession with “how-to” and “self-help” why there isn’t a simple formula or 5 proven steps to achieve marital bliss.

And while Samuel Johnson sees a second marriage as the triumph of hope over experience, I can tell you as a survivor of a 12 year second marriage that your future is bright and that intensity and the happiness you feel today is sustainable, renewable and much more flexible and resilient that you imagine.

Given our sophistication in psychology, behavioral science and statistics, its remarkable that a team from Harvard, MIT or Stanford hasn’t produced a sure-fire algorithm for marital success that accounts for and weights all the relevant and contingent variables.

But until we can read about these breakthroughs, allow me to offer 7 pieces of advice or my personal Sheva Brachot …

1. Create Time Together. Your lives are crazy. Create time to decompress. Just hang out together. Allow yourselves the sacred time and sacred space to talk, to cuddle to let ideas, data and feelings dribble out at their own pace with or without context. Don’t limit yourselves to routine hocking, venting, whining, physical complaints or lists of chores or bills. And don’t be afraid to express yourselves using new or inventive combinations of pet-names, expletives, barnyard sounds, familiar or obscure Yiddish words or the codex of Italian hand gestures

2. Create more, frequent physical intimacy. Studies have shown it’s good for body and soul. And its fun too!

3. Create Joint Parenting Strategies. Create an ego-free zone where you can divorce your ego from your kids’ actions and your kids’ behaviors. Kids are amazing fabulous and brilliant. They are also annoying, needy and exasperating. Strive to teach them, guide them, enjoy them and discipline together. Aim for a point of view that sees only “our” children. Do everything you can to avoid becoming a persistent critic of each other’s parenting style or each other’s kids.

4. Create Focus on Stuff That Matters. We are inundated with stimuli, information and interruptions.  It’s easy to become either overwhelmed or manic or both. There are a handful of things that really matter. There are core values and beliefs that are genuinely worth fighting for. Life is short and too precious to waste time on things that are either optional or distracting. Figure out what these things are for you. Then focus on them. Slough the rest.

5. Create Openness. As we age we get more conservative, more set in our ways, more unwilling to see new things, recognize new facets of old things or adapt to changing realities. Fight these urges. Even Einstein – the man who kicked over the cosmic applecart – went to his grave defending outmoded theories. Fight the urge to default to your parent’s postures and positions. Stake out your own and be willing to abandon them as your kids or those around you show you new things and open up new options and possibilities.  As Chairman Mao said --- always be prepared to storm the headquarters.

6. Create Humor. We have 2 choices in most situations – laughing or crying. Laughing is better, it releases more, better and different chemicals in the body and it allows us to see and feel the absurdity of life on this planet. Two people can participate in humor easier than crying and because there are so many flavors of humor – and we Jews are particularly adept at many of them -- in the end humor leaves you more able to cope with whatever you are facing.

7. Create Forgiveness. We transgress against each other in ways big and small everyday. We communicate in loud, staccato purple prose and in soft mumbled asides. We also develop a vocabulary of looks, glances and gestures that can cut each other to the quick. We step on each others toes. We disappoint each other. We trump and double trump each other. We get all bollixed up and we get all untangled. We make each other crazy and push each others’ buttons consciously and unconsciously. Sometimes you need to “stifle yourself” in Archie Bunker’s terms in service to the genuine dialog that comes immediately after you’ve acted out or lived fully in the moment.

7 Secrets for a Successful Second Marriage

It is surprising that after so many millennia of marriages and in spite of our national obsession with “how-to” and “self-help” why there isn’t a simple formula or 5 proven steps to achieve marital bliss.

And while Samuel Johnson sees a second marriage as the triumph of hope over experience, I can tell you as a survivor of a 12 year second marriage that your future is bright and that intensity and the happiness you feel today is sustainable, renewable and much more flexible and resilient that you imagine.

Given our sophistication in psychology, behavioral science and statistics, its remarkable that a team from Harvard, MIT or Stanford hasn’t produced a sure-fire algorithm for marital success that accounts for and weights all the relevant and contingent variables.

But until we can read about these breakthroughs, allow me to offer 7 pieces of advice or my personal Sheva Brachot …

1. Create Time Together. Your lives are crazy. Create time to decompress. Just hang out together. Allow yourselves the sacred time and sacred space to talk, to cuddle to let ideas, data and feelings dribble out at their own pace with or without context. Don’t limit yourselves to routine hocking, venting, whining, physical complaints or lists of chores or bills. And don’t be afraid to express yourselves using new or inventive combinations of pet-names, expletives, barnyard sounds, familiar or obscure Yiddish words or the codex of Italian hand gestures

2. Create more, frequent physical intimacy. Studies have shown it’s good for body and soul. And its fun too!

3. Create Joint Parenting Strategies. Create an ego-free zone where you can divorce your ego from your kids’ actions and your kids’ behaviors. Kids are amazing fabulous and brilliant. They are also annoying, needy and exasperating. Strive to teach them, guide them, enjoy them and discipline together. Aim for a point of view that sees only “our” children. Do everything you can to avoid becoming a persistent critic of each other’s parenting style or each other’s kids.

4. Create Focus on Stuff That Matters. We are inundated with stimuli, information and interruptions.  It’s easy to become either overwhelmed or manic or both. There are a handful of things that really matter. There are core values and beliefs that are genuinely worth fighting for. Life is short and too precious to waste time on things that are either optional or distracting. Figure out what these things are for you. Then focus on them. Slough the rest.

5. Create Openness. As we age we get more conservative, more set in our ways, more unwilling to see new things, recognize new facets of old things or adapt to changing realities. Fight these urges. Even Einstein – the man who kicked over the cosmic applecart – went to his grave defending outmoded theories. Fight the urge to default to your parent’s postures and positions. Stake out your own and be willing to abandon them as your kids or those around you show you new things and open up new options and possibilities.  As Chairman Mao said --- always be prepared to storm the headquarters.

6. Create Humor. We have 2 choices in most situations – laughing or crying. Laughing is better, it releases more, better and different chemicals in the body and it allows us to see and feel the absurdity of life on this planet. Two people can participate in humor easier than crying and because there are so many flavors of humor – and we Jews are particularly adept at many of them -- in the end humor leaves you more able to cope with whatever you are facing.

7. Create Forgiveness. We transgress against each other in ways big and small everyday. We communicate in loud, staccato purple prose and in soft mumbled asides. We also develop a vocabulary of looks, glances and gestures that can cut each other to the quick. We step on each others toes. We disappoint each other. We trump and double trump each other. We get all bollixed up and we get all untangled. We make each other crazy and push each others’ buttons consciously and unconsciously. Sometimes you need to “stifle yourself” in Archie Bunker’s terms in service to the genuine dialog that comes immediately after you’ve acted out or lived fully in the moment.

And if we truly take to heart the Jewish notion that your wedding day is like Yom Kippur – we can add the full confessional – we lie, we cheat, we steal, we are jealous, we covet – and on and on. You have in your hearts today a great wealth of love and forgiveness. Continuously make deposits into these accounts. Give each other wide latitude to make withdrawals as necessary or as needed.