UnMarketing

The New UnNormal

Scott Stratten — Tue, 04 Aug 2020 13:23:18 +0000

At UnMarketing, we speak, podcast, and write books about business in the age of disruption. We’ve been doing this stuff for a while, but not until recently has disruption so personally affected our business as it has with COVID. So much change – working from home, live events cancelled, five kids (adults and teens) living and studying from home with us, health concerns, caring for ageing parents – has meant that we needed to think about our business differently. We’re building new things, and it’s exciting to reshape how we work and how we’ll continue to move UnMarketing into the future.

Part of reenvisioning our business has been reflective. Over the years, we’ve written and spoken about a gazillion words, and taking the time to reflect on them and refocus has been important work for us to do. As humans, as a family and as Canadians, we’ve done this amidst a long-overdue fight against systemic, anti-Black and Indiginous racism, educating ourselves, reflecting on our actions, and committing more of our time and energy to social justice causes.

We’re building a new foundation – taking a business run off live events and adapting it to work for us, and hopefully all of you, today and in the future. We don’t want things, “going back to normal.” We are taking the best of what we did, innovating, adapting, and building the world of Un. And this is where we get started!

What is UnMarketing?

UnMarketing happens when you stop marketing and start engaging. When you focus on building trust and connection, so when your market needs your product or service, you are the logical choice. It began as a cry against hypothetical marketing – using marketing tactics we hate as customers (ahem…cold calling) when we represent our businesses. It became about community and the power of building relationships with our potential market – because if you believe business is built on relationships, you make building them your business.

UnMarketing recognizes that customers don’t see silos. Your marketing, sales, and branding teams are all one to your customers. Marketing is a verb, and it doesn’t matter what your fancy mission statement says, what matters is what you do. We value people and treat our employees, vendors, and customers with respect and honesty.

UnMarketing means knowing there is no neutral brand experience.

In the face of innovation and new technology, UnMarketing asks WHY before adoption. If the answer is “to seem cool or cutting edge” or “because my competition is already there,” we pause and think. We innovate when it makes sense to our customers, we innovate to build and maintain loyalty, and when we do, we are sure to understand how the tech works first.

UnMarketing means being passionate about consumer advocacy and best-practices. Believing integrity is not a renewable resource – it can take decades to build a good reputation and only one tweet to end it.

UnMarketing means hiring for passion, and knowing the best way to improve your bottom line, is to improve your front line. Value front line workers because they are your brand. Period.

UnMarketing means the best time to share content is when you have something worth sharing – not because it’s Tuesday or vaguely related to a trending topic.

UnMarketing understands that social media is an amplification tool – it isn’t what makes something good or bad for your business – it just makes it louder. If you want to “go viral,” you create experiences worth sharing and make them easy to share.

UnMarketing is not having a presence, without being present. We won’t send a mannequin to a networking event – and we won’t pretend to be listening on social media when we aren’t. We return the brand high five, hear feedback, and ask customers and clients what we should stop, start, and continue.

UnMarketing knows that building loyalty is the key to surviving and thriving during disruptive times. Brands build loyalty by focusing on comfort, cost, convenience, and convergence.

UnMarketing sees that logos don’t matter (at least not as much as you think they do), because we understand that branding isn’t a logo – branding is the impression we leave on people. And, when we do need to design a logo, we leave the work to professional designers.

UnMarketing does not throw aside anyone not ready to purchase – good business is about relationships, not buy or goodbye. You will not have funnel vision.

And lastly, UnMarketing believes that if you are your authentic self, you have no competition. We don’t necessarily mean holding hands and singing (unless that’s your thing), we mean recognizing that you bring unique gifts to the table. Celebrate them, bring them to your work with pride.

Once travelling more than half the year for keynotes, Scott now spends his time on webinars and Zoom. Like many of you reading, we’re entrepreneurs, so we pulled up our sleeves and rolled with it as best we could. Scott has spent months adding audio and sound tech skills to his repertoire as we’ve moved and redecorated a recording space around the house, trying to find a good fit. We will have a bunch of videos in the future about the set-up and tips, so make sure you’re a subscriber to the UnNewsletter at the top of this page.

We also want to thank so many of you who have reached out and asked about the UnPodcast. We will be starting to record new episodes soon, we promise Just working to set up a few tech things for production and we will be back to ranting about the porn Peleton sends us again, soon.

If you’re new to UnMarketing and want to learn more, here are a few blog posts to check out. We’ve also written a book or two

Consumer advocacy:

For Whom The Bell Mobility Tolls. Employee 5-Star App Reviews.

Metrics and viral videos:

Part #1 How One Small Change Got Our Video 13,000,000 More Views On Facebook

Part #2 The Vanity of Going Viral On Facebook

Ethics and Social Media:

“Why Tweets About Obese Doctors Are Never Your Own”

“Warm Spam: The Worst Social Media Recipe, Ever.”

Hierarchy of buying:

“Aiming Your Company at the Bottom of the Barrel.”

Content frequency:

“The Best Time to Never Send Email”

Immediacy and why being present is essential:

“How Delta’s Tweet Saved The Brand Day.”

We’re thankful and happy to be here with you. How have you faced the challenges in your business this year? We’d love to hear how you’re adapting to change.

Truly hoping this post finds you well,

Wear a mask.

Black Lives Matter.

Scott and Alison

Photo by the incomparable Steph Grant

308: A Preemptive Warning

Scott Stratten — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 07:00:33 +0000

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In today’s episode we give fair warning about Scott’s new car habit. Hint: It involves braying. We also talk about the Amazon convenience store; Burger King’s super fresh ad campaign; Disney and the PTA; a birthday party with a very specific Target; and when you’ve had enough of Yelp. All this and more!

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UnMarketing

The New UnNormal

308: A Preemptive Warning

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307: Robot Toilet Paper

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306: Something Inappropriate

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305: Jackasses We Missed

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304: Every Day Is Galentines Day

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303: A Gaggle of Donkeys

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302: Premeditated Jackassery

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301: Speaking of Toilet Emojis

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300: From The Ashes

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