What are you afraid of? Losing your job? Becoming insignificant? Facing something you’ve never done before? Falling out of (or in) love? Threats to your family’s safety? Becoming old and alone?

Read that paragraph again. Most of us have a strong emotional reaction to those threats. That reaction causes physical changes. Our pupils dilate a fraction of a millimeter. Our heart rate quickens. Blood flow increases.

You know what that means? We’re engaged. We’re paying attention.

As marketers, that’s exactly what we want from our targets.

We can’t yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater just to get people moving. There are boundaries we shouldn’t cross just to sell more products. But we do need to find a way to engage our targets and get their attention.

Find the fear. Appeal to the emotion. Understand their deepest desires. And look for a way to connect that need with the real benefits your product or service provides.

Reason & Fear: The Balancing Act

The flip side of emotion is reason. In marketing, we can’t live without it. Logical proof points help our customers rationalize their choices. But if we don’t appeal to a deeper emotional need, those proof points are like a physics lecture – interesting to some, but most of us just don’t care. Prospects need reasons to back up their decisions, but if we fail to engage them on an emotional level, we’ll never get a second look.

The next time you’re looking for a way to connect your product or service with your targets, think about fear. It’s a powerful motivator.

What deep-seated fears can your product help ease? Once you understand the target’s fears, you can soften the approach. People will still get it. Then use reason to back up your emotional message. It’s a one-two punch that always connects. Try it. What are you afraid of?

Have you seen emotional appeals that work particularly well? Are there some that go over the top? How far can we go when making an emotional appeal?

Social media continues to be the quintessential hot topic that has people buzzing. Facebook and Twitter are household names and are often considered the primary online channels for businesses to reach consumers from a branding and marketing perspective. However, some companies are still cautious about entering this dynamic digital forum because it’s not directly answering that age-old question, “How can social media increase my company’s revenue?”

In the past it’s been difficult to put an exact dollar amount to the benefits of social media, but lately some companies are making some bold moves in order to utilize social media to positively impact their bottom line.

One savvy site, www.groupon.com, offers a direct retail connection for food and activities based on how fast a consumer can get the word out to their circle of friends. The unique aspect of the site is to highlight a specific deal within a particular local area, but here’s the catch, you can only get the deal, if enough people actually opt in.

So if a swanky salon in Baltimore is offering a $5 haircut, the offer has to meet its quota in order for anyone to benefit from the deal. The concept takes marketing a “deal of the day” one step further and specifically targets and encourages online social butterflies to influence others within their digital circles. Thus groupon.com has empowered consumers to become their online sales force – enabling users to promote special offers – and has made social media an integral part of their business model in order to generate revenue for their sponsoring retailers and themselves.

In an interesting twist, even a social media channel is learning to place a dollar value on itself. With the release of @earlybird, Twitter is now taking its first step into retail. After observing that their own users were frequently sharing deals and offers online, Twitter decided to enter the eCommerce world. Users can follow the @earlybird Twitter account in order to gain access to the deals. The offers are established by retailers, and Twitter will earn money from the sales. At first the deals will be nationwide, but Twitter is considering targeting specific offers to select cities and other countries in the future. Now a company can directly tap into one established social media channel with wide spread appeal to help promote their products and take advantage of a new and powerful revenue stream.

Another way to determine the value of social media would be to explore if a social media strategy can help eliminate or reduce costs associated with your organization’s current marketing outreach. This was the case when Ben and Jerry’s, the iconic Vermont-based ice cream-maker, decided to drop their traditional monthly eNewsletter for their audience in Britain.

The decision came after consumers voiced that they would prefer to be contacted via social media channels, so Ben and Jerry’s cut their email campaign and notified their target audience to join them on Facebook and Twitter. By focusing now on social media, the company no longer has to allocate their marketing budget to create and release a monthly eNewsletter.

Now before you rush out and restructure your marketing dollars and cut your email campaigns, keep in mind that this decision was based on Ben and Jerry’s understanding of how their target wanted to be contacted. This move also contradicts recent research that found that social media and email used together can significantly increase click through rates and should be used hand-in-hand.

The bottom line is that social media can actually help your bottom line. The only caveat is that you need to look closely at your organization’s marketing objectives to determine the best way to harness the channels and maximize their potential.

When I walk through stores, eat at restaurants, or shop online, I notice the little things which influence me positively or negatively. Businesses make substantial investments to build their brands, but far too often the brand message doesn’t make it to the front line.

Just the other day, I was purchasing my morning joe from a national coffee chain. It was a busy morning, and everybody was caught up in the hustle of life. I was next in line when the clerk yelled, “What would you like?” I was hesitant to answer because the person in front of me was not finished putting their change in their wallet. I placed my order, only to be dismissed in a similar fashion. One shout down the line after another made this a tense morning experience. I even gave this establishment one more try, but still left with the same sense of insignificance. Not so surprisingly, I found another place that sells coffee. My new place of patronage treats me as an individual. Yes, the little things do matter.

I began to wonder why employees aren’t getting the proper training.  During their orientation, they learn how to make coffee, clean up spills, use the cash register and other related tasks to keep the operation running smooth. What about brand? Aren’t they being trained to act in a way that conveys the positive brand image the company presumably wants to uphold?

After my experience, I began noting the little things that have changed my perception of a company’s brand. Below is my current list, and I encourage you to add your little things too.

I switched brands when:

• I entered a furniture store, and a salesperson rushed to me with his business card out. I felt “claimed” before another salesperson could get to me. I was supposed to find him when it was time to make a purchase.
• I went to a department store to purchase an appliance on the same day I received a coupon in the mail. When I arrived, none of the employees were familiar with the product or the sale.
• My regular auto dealer was recently purchased by another company. No one knew me anymore. The great service I enjoyed over many years no longer existed.

Today’s businesses need to train their employees about the “little things” which make them part of something bigger. Everyone from entry level to corporate level should exemplify the same positive image. The brand depends on it.

Share your story. I want to hear your “little things.” I switched brands when….

At the end of a recent seminar, I was asked to define “buzz marketing.” I believe my response was something to the effect, “It’s viral marketing. It’s getting people to talk about your product or service. Buzz marketing is creating buzz.” I thought my definition helped to answer the question at the time, but when I got home that night, the question lingered and I thought, “How do other marketing professionals define buzz?” So I went to my bookshelf and pulled out one of my old MBA consumer behavior books and looked it up.

The best definition I found was from professors Del Hawkins of the University of Oregon and David Mothersbaugh from the University of Alabama. They defined buzz as “the exponential expansion of word-of-mouth” communication. Buzz is the result of specific marketing activities that creates conversation, excitement, and anticipation around a brand, service or product. It’s “Hey, did you hear…? Hey, did you see…? Hey, did you buy…?” Buzz can be positive or negative. Of course, the goal of marketers is to create positive buzz surrounding their brand.

Creating Buzz

Creating buzz is often part of a larger marketing and advertising strategy. Marketers can create buzz by providing opinion leaders advance information about a product or service. Buzz can be created through contests and sweepstakes, sharing product samples, having celebrities use  products, placing products in movies or at events or providing a limited number of products to the public.

Two marketing tactics that are often associated with creating buzz are viral marketing and guerrilla marketing. Viral marketing is an online strategy encouraging targeted users to pass along your message to other targeted users. Email and social media are often tactics used in viral marketing. Guerrilla marketing is the use of non-conventional tactics to begin discussion of a product. Guerrilla marketing can occur online and offline. The goal of both of these tactics is to help speed up the natural word-of-mouth process.

Today, social media plays an important role in creating buzz. Blogs, consumer review sites and social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are key tactics in a buzz marketing campaign.

Examples of Buzz

Ever since the first movie trailer, the movie industry has become great at creating buzz. Some popular examples of this type of buzz are: “The Blair Witch Project,” “Pokemon” and the “Twilight” series. A recent success story was the Old Spice campaign where Old Spice used YouTube videos to respond to Twitter tweets. This campaign helped to increase Old Spice’s Twitter followers to over 80,000 and Facebook likes to 630,000. According to Ad Age, Old Spice’s Facebook interaction and engagement increased 800% with the launch of the personal videos. More importantly, Old Spice grew its market share 4.8 points and increased sales 106% over the previous year.

What’s your feeling about buzz marketing? Do you know of some other ways that marketers can take advantage of buzz? I’d like to read your thoughts.

Colleges and universities today find themselves in a hyper-aggressive competition to attract and retain students. Adult learners and traditional students see themselves as “buyers” of a higher-education product. They have different demands, different expectations. They want colleges and universities to serve their individual needs in curriculum, degree offerings, facilities and extracurricular activities.

To compete and win, colleges and universities must embrace a business mindset. They must focus on building world-class brands that speak to targeted students in a meaningful, relevant way. They must address three fundamental challenges—and opportunities—in developing their brands:

1. Define what you want to be – and own it

Many colleges try to be all things to all people. It seems to be a common approach in higher education. Take a look at a few college websites, skim through their recruitment literature, or better yet, talk with their admissions counselors, staff and faculty. Many of them look and sound the same.

What many institutions lack is a clear focus on what they want to become, a defined positioning that establishes the college’s target market and how the school can uniquely own that market segment within its competitive set. The key is to tailor the product, education and the collegial experience, so that it has significant appeal to a defined target audience, and it is packaged in a way that stands apart from competing institutions.

Establishing a positioning means the college has made a commitment to focus its efforts, definitively take a position, and drive all of its resources into owning a unique standing in the market. By embracing a defined position, the college has the opportunity to establish powerful differentiation from competing institutions and become the college of choice among targeted, prospective students—a far better approach than trying to be all things to all people.

2. Make a promise – and live it

Many college and university leaders are seeing the value of developing a brand strategy for their institutions, a strategy that articulates what the institution stands for, showcases its unique attributes and makes a powerful “promise” to its students and other stakeholders.

Living the promise is the challenge and the opportunity. The promise must come to life in the quality of education; the student experience; how staff, faculty and students interact and communicate with each other; in the culture that lives within the college community; and, of course, it should drive all institutional marketing communications and public relations.

If a college or university forms a brand strategy centered on the concept of providing a “personalized education,” strategic business decisions need to be made and implemented to assure that the majority of students actually receive the personal attention promised. If a college or university is positioned based on the strengths of its academics, investments need to be made to ensure it truly is delivering a “best-in-class” education.

A brand promise can’t just be nice words on paper. It has to be real, relatable and actionable. All three of those objectives are achieved when there is involvement, collaboration and engagement.

The faculty, staff and leadership of the college should be involved in the development of the brand strategy. They should be asked to feed back and collaborate on the creation of each brand element and should remain engaged throughout the entire strategic process. After all, the brand promise must be embraced by the campus community in order for the brand to be effective. Involvement needs to come from all corners. College leadership, including the board of directors and/or trustees, need to endorse the brand strategy and recognize their roles in making decisions that reinforce the brand.

3. Create an experience – and deliver it

We talk with clients all the time about the importance of creating a unique brand experience – fantastic products, terrific customer service, passionate employees and integrated marketing communications and public relations that all come together to tell a powerful story about who they are and what they’re about.

The same holds true for colleges and universities. During a brand engagement, we use research to study the touchpoints that combine to form the larger experience. Touchpoints are the interactions students and other stakeholders experience during their engagement and relationship with the college. When those touchpoints are carefully choreographed, the college delivers a powerful brand experience.

One touchpoint that really stands out is the campus visit for a prospective student.

The campus visit must be an experience, not just a visit. It should “celebrate” the institution’s brand, showcase the college’s promise to the student and how the institution stands apart from other colleges. It must “wow” the student in a way that is authentic, interactive and speaks to them on their terms.

A great brand experience creates a “buzz-worthy” experience. When prospective students have a great visit, they share it online, they share it with their friends. When current students are happy at school, they evangelize it -everywhere. The experiences themselves, whether it is a planned event or a simple interaction with a professor, should be commonplace. All it takes is a willingness to identify and develop those key touchpoints, to engage and train faculty and staff, and to continually improve so that brand delivery becomes second nature.

OK, I admit it – I’m a fan of “American Idol.” (Yes, I know, here comes the grief!) When I can’t make it home at 8pm, I record the show on my DVR and watch it when I have a free minute. Honestly, I prefer watching it at a later time so I can skip through the commercials to get right to the performances and the results.

During the last show, I stopped fast-forwarding and thought to myself, “What impact does my DVR activity have on an advertiser’s brand?” It seemed to me that fast-forwarding through a commercial would not impact the consumer as much as watching the 30-second spot, but I wondered if it had any effect on consumer behavior at all. And, how did this affect consumers’ brand perception? My first assumption was that all brand awareness was lost, but I wasn’t sure. So, out of curiosity, I did a little research and found some interesting information.

Breaking Through Fast-Forwarding: Brand Information and Visual Attention

A study by two professors from Boston College, S. Adam Brasel and James Gips, provides information on how fast-forwarding can affect a brand, the impact that this act can have on the consumer and their perception of a brand. The study offers key insights to how marketers might increase their overall effectiveness of their advertising.

In their research paper published in the November 2008 issue of the Journal of Marketing titled, “Breaking Through Fast-Forwarding: Brand Information and Visual Attention,” the professors conducted two studies based on eye-tracking that would show how fast-forwarding viewers paid attention during commercials, specifically to the center of the screen, waiting for a cue from the program’s bumper to stop the fast-forwarding action. Ads containing brand information at the center of the screen, even though these ads lost 95% of their frames and had no audio, still created brand recognition and brand memory. The professors later performed a third study that showed that fast-forwarded commercials with extensive central brand information can positively affect consumers’ attitude towards a brand, their behavioral intent and choice behavior.

What does this mean for marketers?

Based on this research, marketers of brands that advertise on TV should reconsider their commercials’ creative and have the brand prominently placed in the center of the screen for a significant amount of time. The research explained how fast-forwarding through commercial pods alters the visual attention of the viewer. As mentioned above, the viewer’s focus becomes the center of the screen waiting for the next bumper cue. Brand information placed at the center of the commercial can lead to increased brand attitude and purchase intent.

The study also revealed that advertisements with peripheral or limited branding had little effect on the viewer when they fast-forwarded through the commercial. Although certain commercials provide interest when watched completely for 30 seconds, marketers should reconsider “hiding” their brand-name or logo until the end of the commercial if they expect that the spot may be fast-forwarded through. Other important calls to action such as a website address or telephone number also needs to be carefully positioned in association with the other brand elements.

To fully understand brand positioning in a commercial takes careful and strong creative and copy writing. It takes a process that is thorough and goal-oriented. For marketers, it means that a television commercial should be held accountable to produce results. A commercial should be more than something that looks cool for 30 seconds because today with a DVR, those 30 seconds may only allow for one or two seconds of brand awareness.

Read the complete research paper

Over the years, we’ve helped several of our clients develop their brands. We methodically step them through the process and work together to build a brand that is differentiated from the competition in a way that is relevant to their customers.  Then we hand them their new brand and say “OK, good luck!”

Not really.

Developing an “own-able” brand is a true accomplishment. It requires diligent research on the target and competition.  It requires an understanding of the long term vision, and the desired perception in the market place.  It often requires making tough decisions while prioritizing the personality, credibility and differentiation factors that make your brand, YOUR brand. So it would be crazy to invest all those resources, and then not follow through to ensure that your employees are delivering on that brand. Yet that is exactly what happens in many cases.

Recently my wife visited a local “fast-casual” restaurant (I’ll refrain from mentioning the name, although it’s very tempting) to pick-up carry-out for the family. This particular business positions itself as having not only better food than the fast-food places, but also providing a better overall experience. When one sees their marketing, one comes away feeling that the experience of buying dinner there will be almost Zen-like, with high quality, healthy food supplemented by a soothing, easy purchase experience. A far cry from the obnoxious, “who cares” service that you would get at one of those OTHER fast-food places.

To make a long story short, my wife’s brand experience did not at all line up with the way the company positions itself. Why? One single employee who clearly didn’t believe in, or deliver on, the brand.  The food was great. But the service was rude. End result? Two potential brand-fans who are now not interested in ever going back for another try. Not because of the marketing. Not because of the product. Because of the experience.

Delivering on the brand at every touch point is crucial to success. As my colleague, Michael Deiner pointed out in his November post, “Great Brands Begin Internally.”

Once you’ve educated your employees on the brand, challenge them to think of how they can integrate the brand into what they do every day. Meet with the various departments and discuss specific action items that will allow them to be true to the brand. If they work in HR, challenge them to develop ways to incorporate the brand into interviewing and employee review processes. If they work in customer service, encourage them to think of ways to effectively represent the brand when they are interacting with customers. Reward positive “brand behavior”, and recognize those individuals publicly to encourage others to follow their lead. Through ongoing workshops and training, we work with our clients to effectively infuse the brand into the daily lives of their employees.

You work very hard to provide great product and services. You invest in your marketing communications to tell the story. But have you given enough thought to how the brand is delivered by your employees every day?  Maybe it’s time.

I recently published an article on our Learning Solutions blog titled “Innovative Ways to Educate Customers.” The blog talks about how leading organizations, including DuPont, Cisco and American Express are using video, on-demand learning and learning communities to educate customers.

Marketing leaders are investing in these efforts to further establish their brands, capture new leads and build deeper relationships with prospects and customers. Check out the blog and consider how you might engage your customers in a more meaningful educational experience.

In 1989 I asked my first boss, Rich, what he thought about the idea of communicating with clients through a technology that was the precursor to email. He told me that he did not think it was a good idea- it would prevent communication with clients from being properly screened. Hmmm? I wonder how many emails he sends to clients today?

Rich’s desire to manage the flow of information reminds me of the argument that some organizations are making for blocking access to social media by their own employees:

• “Information needs to be vetted.”
• “It will let secrets out.”
• “It’s a drain on productivity.”

It is easy to understand why these issues are a concern, but increasingly organizations see social media use by employees as a benefit, not a threat.  The U.S. Air Force is one of these.

“All Airmen are encouraged to use new and social media…”

The first page of New Media and The Air Force, a guide that the Air Force Public Affairs division published to communicate its new media policies, says: “All Airmen are encouraged to use new and social media to communicate about topics within their areas of expertise, or their interests.” The guide goes on to say:  “While communication with media and the public has traditionally been the responsibility of public affairs, today all Airmen are communicators.”

“If the Air Force does not tell its own story, someone else will.”

Why would a huge organization that is built on confidentiality embrace social media so energetically?
Here’s what they say: “Traditional, vertical communication is critical for the Air Force, but new technologies give Airmen the opportunity to horizontally inform the media, the public and each other. If the Air Force does not tell its own story, someone else will.”

Social Media is Encouraged and Taught, But also Managed

It is clear that the Air Force is confident in its ability to train its people to perform at high standards. The written guide that encourages Airmen to use new media, explicitly tells them what is acceptable behavior on a variety of social media sites.

What the Air Force has realized is that information itself is a strategic asset- it’s one of the tools that will help it meet its critical mission. And its actions show that it trusts Airmen to use the same good judgment in their social media activities that they use in their other work activities.

As you are evaluating your social media policy, I suggest that you review the social media policies of other organizations- you can do that here at SocialMediaGovernance.com.  You might also ask yourself whether social media really is the biggest threat to information security within your walls- consider the example of the U.S. Air Force, the organization that safeguards our nuclear missiles.

The biggest sporting event on earth – the World Cup – reveals two distinctly different approaches to soccer: the German style, with its tight structure, strong defense, short passes and low risk; and the Latin style, which is much more individual, free-wheeling and creative, but susceptible to dangerous counter attacks.

Maybe I need to get a life, but it seems that these two soccer styles describe the evolution of marketing communications over the past few decades. Not so long ago, marketers tightly controlled brand image and messaging. We told consumers what our brands represent, explained the product benefits, and dictated how those messages would be delivered. Short, safe passes in a tightly organized structure.

A new game

Marketers today no longer have complete control of brand messaging. Our customers tell us what our brands represent. Through blogs, forums and social media, they communicate our product benefits to others. It’s a wide-open world, full of inventive consumers eager to join the conversation. Our rigid control of marketing messages is a thing of the past. The game has changed.

This new game is more challenging for marketers, but it’s also more fun for consumers and they’re far more engaged. Just as soccer fans prefer the inventive, flashy play of Brazil over the solid, safe play of Germany, the give and take of brand communications is more exciting when more players get involved in the action.

The passionate fan

As marketers, we’ve learned to join the conversation and guide its direction instead of orchestrating every detail from our ivory towers. We’ve learned to embrace the power of consumers and let them show the passion they feel for our brands. They’ve become our evangelists. And they don’t even want a paycheck.

However, there are risks. Allowing consumers to participate in “our” marketing programs exposes our brands to dangerous counterattacks. We’re vulnerable to unfair criticism and misinterpretation. But if the brand is strong and the team is vigilant, we can succeed on a level unimaginable 20 years ago. Our role, as coach, is to field our resources and manage the whole team – including consumers – so we can achieve victory in the marketplace.

Now if we could just do something about those damn horns…