Area 224 is hosting another webinar, but this one is specifically for B2B Marketers.

Friendly Faceless LinkedIn Logo Guy

Lots of you aren’t in the B2B space – and if you’re not, that’s okay.

Webinar is August 12, 2 ET/1 CT/12 MT/11 PT.

But B2B marketers ask us one question all the time:

Has anyone figured out B2B Social Media Marketing?

Answer: yes, sorta, kinda, but it ain’t easy.

If you’re looking for a silver bullet, hunt down another webinar.

But if you’re looking to find the way to set the strategy and ask the right questions…to navigate through the politics of any organization…and to talk the executive teams on and off the ledge…

Well, we hope you’ll join us.

So, we’re hosting a webinar…

Not just any webinar, though, a chance to help you the marketer become less lame.

Through Holistic Social Media Marketing.

Learn more at the registration page…and join Area 224 on Thursday, July 22!

We finally did it – after 2 plus years on Twitter, interacting, engaging, talking, getting into arguments, making friends, we are at the 10,000 follower threshold.

Twitter is about engagement, about conversations. And we’ve had such a great time with so many of you…so we want to single out 10 – people or groups of people – who have helped us along the way. In No Particular Order:

1. @unmarketing – I single out Scott Stratten for a couple reasons. Other than being uber-cool and all that, he happens to be the first person ever to send me a direct message on Twitter. It was an actual message, asking me how I was liking Twitter so far.

He’s worth a follow. He’s the real deal. And I get the feeling that, after he sells a zillion copies of his book, he’ll still be the real deal.

2. @ginidietrich. Whip-smart, opinionated, charming as heck. We’ve had some killer conversations on Twitter and elsewhere. She’s the CEO of Arment Dietrich.

3. @tweetmaker. Meet Jim Alexander. Solid citizen – solid enough that we’re working on a book together. Called Nichification. One of those people that, after you meet him IRL, you like him even more than you did on Twitter.

4. @garyunger. Creative Genius. Really.

5. @hgtv. We had the pleasure of being the “Tweet of the Week” on the Cable Channel HGTV earlier this year. So much fun – and they made a video of it. Learn more here: Tweet of the Week.

6. Some Real People: Like @LindsayMAllen, @ChicagoDiane, @mattplanet, @marksherrick, @harrisonpainter, @tmjackso @coffeyjulie, @chrisbrogan, @gilrogers, @mattdollinger, @rosshair, @rondavies, @waynemansfield, @ryanwynia,@toyotaequipment, @ceslsu, @ryan_manno. And a real dog, like @doggedpursuit.

7. Some Real Brands. Like @ms_elli, @liquorlandNZ, @SierraNevadaCA. I hope to visit y’all someday.

8. Wine people: @chwine (the folks at Cameron Hughes do some great work) and @rickbakas (we’ll meet IRL one of these days…). @cinderellawine is pretty darn cool, too. Oh, and that @garyvee guy – yes, he does all his own stunts.

9. Some dynamite women entrepreneurs. @barefoot_exec. @annevanston and @alexisneely. And don’t forget @jennifervides and @kellyolexa. Always smiling…Thanks for inspiring us all – and keeping us motivated.

10. @karioca – my lovely wife, Kari. You’re the best!

This Twitter thing is pretty cool – and if I’ve forgotten you, I apologize. Do let me know…and thanks for all the conversations!

Like everyone else, we’re watching BP and wondering if the oil spill will ever stop.

It may not. In the event that we’re still having this discussion in July 2011, here are three moves that BP can make right now to minimize loss of brand equity.

1. Cut prices at every one of your service stations by 25% effective immediately.

Why? You’re going to lose tons of business anyway.

For instance, heading out of town this weekend, I filled up on gas. I bypassed your station in Evanston, IL. Better to support the Marathon guy down the road. I made this decision simply because I didn’t want to give you more money than I already had to.

Then, on the Indiana Toll Road, my hands were tied. BP or nothing. Darnit. So I filled up at a BP station.

But there’s more to this, right? I mean, local dealers who sell BP have franchises and buy gas from you and all that stuff I don’t understand.

So it’s these guys that are gonna lose business. And lots of business.

Thus the 25% cut in prices. That will make me think twice. Right?

2. Buy an acre of Louisiana swamp land for every hour that the spill continues.

Pay market prices. Donate the land to the State of Louisiana. Call it a day.

3. Accept any Louisiana fishing claims without batting an eye.

If I have a shrimp boat in Louisiana, and I’m toast, I probably don’t have Environmental Insurance. Business Interruption Insurance. ANY INSURANCE. I’m not saying people can make crazy claims, but if a 40 year-old guy in the Bayou says he makes $75K a year fishing and will lose everything, cut him a check.

4. Know all that “Beyond Petroleum” stuff you have been doing? Do it again. And again. And again.

I want to see wind farms. I want to see soy biodiesel. I want you to revisit all those ads from a few years ago where you talk to people on the streets and they tell you what they want out of an oil company.

I want to see those ads and I want to see them now.

5. Get a YouTube Channel NOW.

See the ad up here? It has 200,000 hits.

Search for “BP” on YouTube and stuff like this comes up.

Not press conferences, updates from your executives, video of your own.

Get a channel and get it NOW.

Isn’t it interesting how some things stick out in your mind – and others, well, you either can’t (or don’t) remember?

This can be true with marketing. I’m talking all kinds of marketing: ad campaigns, direct mail pieces, social media marketing, outreach, events…gosh, the list goes on.

So…

How do you make your marketing “memorable?”

Here are five tips:

1. Have a point. This may seem trite, but so many people forget it with their marketing. For example, I was just on the website of a company that a friend of a friend suggested I check out. The most annoying thing about this site could have been its flash graphics (always a bad idea, IMHO). Or maybe the crappy color scheme. (They did that.) Bad design. (An overall valueless website.)

These were not the biggest failings — the biggest failing was the lack of a point. I read and re-read what it was they do and it had the feel of a website that was built by committee. With no point.

2. Distill your messages down to the WIIFM. To that end, every piece of marketing MUST be written as if you’re the target audience asking “What’s in it for me?” This gets back to benefit vs. feature. Feature: what the executives decide management should care about when launching the product.

Benefit: what the buyer will want to get FROM BUYING THE PRODUCT. How will I benefit? What’s in it for me?

3. Ask “why should I care?” Search has a mastermind person named Avinash Kaushik – @avinashkaushik — and he talks about the “3 layers of So What?” I love this because it takes the above “Benefit vs. Feature” question, the WIIFM concept, and ratchets it up big time.

To paraphrase Avinas: keep asking “so what?”

For example…”I’m launching a new service that delivers cufflinks to your door within 24 hours?” So What? “The cufflinks are handmade in Africa?” So What? “Every time you buy a pair for $35 we buy a cow for the villagers who made the cufflinks and they get 25% of every sale in cash.”

Editor’s note — this service, as far as I know, doesn’t exist yet.

4. Look for the niche within the niche. Fellow savvy marketer Jim Alexander and I have been working on a book whose code name is “Nichification.” This is a lot of work — interviews with people who have launched products and services and successfully sold and marketed them in various niche businesses.

One emerging theme in this book is the niche within the niche.

Put simply, take a subset of the population that would buy your niche product (if you use the above, try “cufflinks enthusiasts”). Then, take a subset of THAT population and cater your marketing to them. 75% of those who wear cufflinks are rich guys. The other 25% might be those who want to know that every cufflinks purchase helps support the global economy.

Write for those people.

5. Cut out unnecessary words and puffery. I find myself increasingly annoyed with marketing that is memorably BAD for its over-blown, long-winded, crap-o-rama.

We’ve all seen the web pages that go on and on and on, where you have to keep scrolling down to find out what they’re selling and how much it sells for.

I love Mark Twain’s line: “I am sorry I am writing a long letter, I didn’t have the time to write a short one.”

Get to the point with your words, marketers. We’ll thank you…

So, now that you’re ready to be memorable with your marketing…what tips do YOU have to share?

What’s it like to build a brand in this modern age?

Ford Logos

I often hearken back to days of old — when I was in an operating company of a large financial services conglomerate*. Often, we’d hear something from the field: “hey, we’ve created this product, we need to sell it” or “this is a service that we need to roll out.” All of this needed to happen within the confines of a large, prescribed, and sometimes unwieldy brand architecture.

But it became a lot simpler when we’d ask the following two questions for context:

Are talking about BRAND or MODEL?

Are we discussing BENEFITS or FEATURES?

Let’s start with Brand vs. Model. “Ford” is the brand. (One that happens to be kicking some major bottom these days — probably for going against the grain.) You can see from the above photo that brand, obviously, is more than just a logo. The cars and their features change over time, sometimes mistakes are made along the way, sometimes there are breakthrough successes.

But each MODEL must support the overall Ford BRAND. Ford might mean “All-American” to some, could be “economical” or “reliable” to others, or “supercharged sports car” to others.

Gonna launch the Ford Edge? Or the Fiesta? Those are MODELS — the guess here is that the team behind the Edge said “what could we build that says ‘crossover’ but still embodies the Ford BRAND?” (Can you tell that, with each passing day, I want a Ford Edge more and more?)

So, if you’re building a BRAND, are your MODELS supporting the overall BRAND? Is each one of your PRODUCTS or SERVICES a MODEL, underneath an overall BRAND ARCHITECTURE?

Note: these questions work well, VERY WELL, for on- and off-line brands. Trust me.

What about the “Benefits vs. Features” question? Thanks, again, to Ford for hitting us upside the head with the BENEFITS vs. FEATURES on the Ford Edge Official Site. Screenshot, please…

Thanks, Ford

Did you notice something? While Ford could have hit you over the head with MPGs, with government ratings on fuel efficiency, scores on 0-to-60, etc., they didn’t. They put themselves in your shoes (as a driver, consumer, future buyer) and said, simply “Drive Past Gas Stations Faster.”

That’s putting BENEFITS before FEATURES. That’s asking the question “How will the reader/prospect/future buyer BENEFIT from buying our product/reading our copy/visiting our site?”

People of Earth, I’ve been guilty of not asking these questions, too. Feature: my site can do x, y and z. Benefit: visit my site and you’ll end up happier, more refreshed. Whatever.

There’s a little bit of empathy marketing here. There’s a little bit of agile marketing here.

But there’s a ton to learn from Ford here, too.

And from the Financial Services concern I worked for, where we actually would get pushback on BRAND vs. MODEL. And on BENEFITS vs. FEATURES.

It was great pushback, made us all stronger.

Try pushing back yourselves.

[*That large financial services conglomerate should be pretty obvious if you've Googled me.]

Zimbabwe FTW

“You’re kidding me, right? This can’t be real currency, is it?”

Yes, this is a picture of a 100 Trillion Dollar Bill. From Zimbabwe. Issued a couple years ago.

Now worth nothing, as hyperinflation meant that 100,000,000,000,000 didn’t buy what it used to.

What does this have to do with your email newsletter?

Quite a bit. Follow along, please…

Does It Communicate VALUE?

It’s highly possible that everything in your email newsletter is valuable to you. That would be great if you were talking to yourself; talking to yourself is the opposite of what your email newsletter is supposed to do.

At some point, your customer/client/prospect/scraped email address WILL MIGHT read your newsletter. Communicating value to them means giving them something they may not have thought of, some information they wouldn’t have found out without you, or news that is timely (or a new twist on someone else’s news).

Does It Grab Attention?

Admit it – a One Hundred Trillion Dollar Bill is rather attention-grabbing. However, this doesn’t mean your newsletter must be inherently clever or creative to grab attention. Attention could very well be talking about THAT THING that the client/customer/prospect/scraped email address needs to know RIGHT NOW.

AVERAGE: “The latest news from XYZ Associates.” I have little interest, unless I know you or own shares in XYZ Associates.

BETTER: “8 tips for a stunning Valentine’s Day meal.” Now you’re talking – you have my attention with something timely (5 days left, gotta get something), helpful, valuable. Odds of getting your email opened: much better.

Do I even WANT your Newsletter?

Props to @unmarketing for raising this issue today, as well as to @jakrose and to anyone else I can namedrop with.

Jason started this, actually, with a simple tweet, RT’d by Scott:

“@jakrose When I give you my business card, that does not mean I want to be added to your your crappy email newsletter. Kthx”

The quid pro quo here is mis-interpreted WAY TOO OFTEN. This is why we use systems like aWeber to confirm that someone actually wants our crappy email newsletter.

If you take the approach that the exchange of business cards equals the agreement to share emails back and forth, START with a quick note that says “hey, I’d like to keep communicating with you through our email newsletter.” PLEASE.

Do I even want your Zimbabwean currency? I mean, can I do anything with it? Is there value there? Sure, you got my attention, but…

Final thought:

Those ads on the radio for certain email newsletter systems make it sound like signing up for the free 60-day trial will end up ramping your business up to success levels attained only by mere mortals. You need a strategy for your BUSINESS first. Then a communications strategy to go with.

Then, maybe, just maybe, a newsletter will fit into your strategy. Or maybe not.

Whaddya think?

A major news outlet called me, Dave, last week and wanted to ask me some questions. I said “No.”

Before you call me a wacko and say that I should have said yes because it would have been TREMENDOUS positioning for me, Area 224 and our Real SMM launch, here’s the backstory.

Back in the day — circa 2006 until early 2009, ages ago in Internet speak — I ran a business called U Sphere. We were in the college admissions portal business; it was a great learning experience, we made a little noise, blah blah blah.

As part and parcel of that business, I got out there as an expert on college admissions: the process, how families can navigate through it, what schools are up-and-coming, all those fun things.

Well, a reporter with Smart Money got ahold of my name, gave me a call, explained what she was working on. Could I help? She was on deadline and it had to happen like, this morning.

I said no…but it was a qualified no…and that’s what’s good for business.

My qualified no was pretty simple — U Sphere was no longer operating, and I know someone who would be dynamite for her interview.

So I gave her the name and number of my friend in the admissions world, Paul Lloyd Hemphill, and said that he’s the right guy, he’d be happy to help her, go ahead and give him a call, and say that you know me.

The result? Well, here’s a link to the full college admission article from SmartMoney.com.

Could I have done the interview? Absolutely, operating under the theory of having forgotten more than most people will ever know about that subject. But that would have been a bad idea, and pretty arrogant of me. So here’s why the next step was GOOD for business.

1. It scored points with the reporter. Reporters like helpful people, even if you are not their eventual interview subject. Your honesty will help big time — “I’m not the right person, but [so and so] is.”
2. It allowed someone else to be positioned as an expert — good for him, good for the reporter, good for the story.
3. It did NOT take Area 224 off the 8-ball. We don’t play in the college admissions game; why waste everyone’s valuable time?
4. It solidified a working relationship — Paul now knows for a fact that we have him “on the shelf of the mind” when anyone needs college admissions advice. We are now his go-to for PR and marketing advice and counsel.

So, peanut gallery — did Dave from Area 224 do the right thing?

We have often told folks that Twitter is a large combination of Art & Science.

There’s a science to following, followers, messaging, how often, what to automate, all that fun stuff.

There’s an art, too…to authenticity that you can’t fake, to real-life interactions, to speaking your mind, to asking the right questions.

Witness this: an Area 224 Tweet that became HGTV’s Tweet of the Week.

SO, what’s the point here, besides Area 224 tooting its own horn?

Let me break it down a little for you:

Science: Spending SOME time on Twitter, interacting with people.

Art: Showing your personality – asking questions of others – reacting to their answers.

Science: Automating (using free tools like SocialOomph and Refollow) the process of finding and following people, and allowing those tools to send out some of your tweets for you, at times when you wouldn’t be at your desk.

Art: Being sometimes off the cuff.

Science: Digging into the metrics behind links, followers, time spent on Twitter, and whether or not you got any leads/sold any widgets/maximized your time spent.

Art: Realizing that the things you WANT to get the most publicity out of (read: your blog, your business, etc.) will often be trumped by a random occurrence such as someone from HGTV reading your Tweet and asking you if they could use it.

Does anyone have it all figured out? Neither do we.

BTW, you can find HGTV on Twitter at @HGTVOfficial.

Ever since the Tiger Woods story broke, we’ve been watching it from a communications perspective: How Tiger communicates, what he says when, and whether or not he’s handling this crisis right. We blogged about it last week (you can see that post here).

And, since it broke, we’ve also noticed something really eerie: for someone who talks to the press a lot, who relies on his public image for income (endorsements, public appearances, things outside of golf) — Tiger Woods has really bungled this crisis.

Then there’s David Letterman.

Remember his admission of guilt — for what would appear to be similar “transgressions” — on his TV show?

We reached out to some of our smart contacts in the Communications world to ask why David Letterman emerged from his story relatively unscathed — and Tiger’s story appears to keep going and going, putting his endorsement deals and his status as the first “Billion-Dollar Athlete” in serious jeopardy.

An About-Face of Character?

Gary Unger, Creative Genius, @garyunger on Twitter, says that when image doesn’t match reality, reporters and the public look for more:

“My initial thoughts are that Letterman has been known to be an @ss throughout the years. Recently his rants on Sarah Palin showed him to be ‘not very nice’ as far as continuing to pick on someone who lost. Not good form for the most part. (But now that Palin is back in the spotlight I think she’s fair game). And previously with Bush, Misc. sports stars, some movie stars. But more notably he was called out years ago for his philandering. I believe his wife now was his live in girlfriend for about 10 years. And he had multiple girlfriends at the same time. So Letterman’s character is ‘old news.’

Now Woods is a different story, he’s been projecting this squeaky clean image all these years. Great relationship with his dad and mom. Wasn’t photographed at strip clubs, buying drugs, or even having temper tantrums. And then all of a sudden this accident and some ‘weird’ parts to the story. Then Woods went into hiding. Not a good idea since reporters can smell the ‘weird’ and want to reconcile the weird part of the story to reality. Woods who is likely at base character a nice guy did what nice guys do, they try to stay out of the spotlight when they do something embarrassing and see that they went off the path and want to get back on the correct path.

The difference between the two: Letterman came right out and said it to America and that took the initial sting out of the issue. Reporters don’t have the ‘scoop’ and now can only report, not ‘find.’ Woods gave the sharks what they live for, the scoop. Not only that Woods is not talking, Letterman talked to whoever wanted to talk about it.

Letterman: ‘I’m an @ss, what are you going to do about it’

Woods: ‘uh….’”

Avoid the Phrase “No Comment” at All Costs

Rachel Kay (@rachelakay on Twitter), from Rachel Kay Public Relations (whose blog is called CommuniKaytrix), on Tiger’s “no comment,” thoughts she first shared right after the story broke:

“When we take clients through media training, one of the first rules we teach is to never say ‘no comment.’ The idea is that ‘no comment’ is essentially an admission of guilt. Whether or not it really is, ‘no comment’ can leave people feeling like they are uninformed, misinformed or that a concern is being disregarded. As the investigation into the accident heats up, what was concern for Tiger seems to be shifting to a feeling of what is Tiger not telling us?”

Get Out in Front, NOW.

Gini Dietrich, CEO of Arment Dietrich Public Relations, and author of the Spin Sucks blog:

“David Letterman got out in front of his ‘situation,’ he told people what happened, what he did, and he made it a non-story. Media talked it about it maybe two days and then got bored with the story because there wasn’t any dirt to dig up. With Tiger, just like what you blogged about last week, if he’d gotten out in front of the story (even 24 hours later) and was honest, no one would be digging up all of his mistresses.

This is crisis PR 101. Describe the situation, be honest, apologize, say what you’re going to do to fix it, and live your life. When it becomes a story is when you lie, when you avert questions, and when there clearly is something people want to find out to bring you down.”

So, we ask you, fair readers: how should Tiger communicate from here on out?