Marketing Rant

The elections are back.

I just got off the phone with someone soliciting my support for one of the political parties (alas, not the one that will get my vote).

You turn on the TV, and it’s all about political debates, non-stop.

Newspapers keep polling their readers on which way they are going to vote (or even on whether they are going to vote at all).

And as if all that wasn’t enough, my son Eugene, who’s 10-years old, came from the school yesterday and started telling me which parties I shouldn’t vote for. NDP is this, and the Green Party is that. He really didn’t leave me much room for manoeuvre, some fervent kid! Well, turns out, he had a very serious political discussion on the way home on the bus with Mathew, his buddy from Grade 8.

Crazy.

If even 10-year old kids are so enthralled by this debate, what do smart referral marketers do in this situation?

Answer: They create a campaign that has a tie-in to the current news!

A word of warning: When you work on your “tie-in”, make sure to add a dose of humour, as otherwise your message may be mistaken for being a part of the event itself and dismissed as junk.

This is exactly what we are going to do: create a campaign.

“I Vote: You!”

Here’s an idea for an easy-to-do inexpensive campaign (in most cases, you can set it up in just one day).

Create a card - or a postcard - showing a polling station and a person inserting their vote into the “box”. As you can see on the sample card provided here, I used a heart-shaped cut-out for the picture to make it look less official: As I already suggested, you don’t want them to mistaken you for a politician trying to drum up their support.

If you’d like, you can replace the Elections Canada logo on the polling station with your company’s logo.

Add the headline that reads, “I Vote: YOU!”.

And that’s it! We’re ready to rock’n'roll.

The successful execution of this campaign depends on answering the three questions:

- Who are we going to send this card to?
- What exactly are we going to say on this card?
- How will this card get printed and mailed?

In lieu of space in the blog, I provided the detailed answers to all these questions in this special report, The Fastest, Easiest, Most Effective Way To Drum Up More Business This Very Week By Creating A Tie-In To … The Elections. Just click on the link to download the report (no, you don’t need to register, I won’t ask you for your email address.)

Happy Referrals & ’till next week.

Would you like to buy a few… pixels?

A client sent me this link a couple of days ago: http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com. I figure that was no accident, as this site is now hitting the radar screens of news agencies and tabloids worldwide. (I was also timely as I just finished reading — and re-reading — a great book on P.T. Barnum written by Joe Vitale.)

Alex Tew, a 21 years old Brit, created a webpage consisting of 1 million pixels. Now he sells them (pixels, that is) as advertising space at $1 per pixel.

If you go this website right now, it may not even come up: It’s a stampede of Internet users from all over the world rushing there to take a look-see or buy some pixels.

According the the man, it all started as a simple idea – a very outrageous idea – to make a few bucks that would pay the university tuition. Nice score on that one! There no shade of doubt in my mind this tuition will no longer be a problem. The real question is, does Alex Tew need it anymore? I think those university professors have a lot to learn from him!

Hmm… maybe I should go buy me some pixels before they’re all gone.

See you in 2006!

Joe Vitale made my day. I don’t remember laughing so hard in my life. (Good thing Irina was at the office and the kids were at school, they’d think daddy went complete cuckoo.)

Don’t wanna spoil it for you fellas, check it out here:
http://www.infoproductu.com/Superstar/

All the best to you, Joe. Never felt so good giving someone a little plug in my blog. Nicely done.

Namaste.

Google has come up with Blog Search: http://blogsearch.google.com. It still says “beta” but I bet you it’s here to stay.

Don’t know why it took them so long…

No, this post is not about high gas prices (and I know they’re high).

Last night, I was filling it up at the new Esso gas station a couple of blocks from where I live. And while I was doing that, there was an LCD TV going louder than at the movies. Yes, they installed that flat screen fancy tee-vee right on top of the pump! So while you’re holding that hose and normally would be waching the numbers on the display roll up calculating the damage to your wallet, this thing now just goes off and burries you in a tidal wave of advertisement. And there’s nowhere to hide.

With so much advertising hitting your prospects’ eyes and ears everywhere they go, it is any wonder your message can’t make even a small blip on their radar screen?

I spoke with a dentist the other day. His flyer used to bring 10 to 12 new clients every every time they’d send it. Now it only brings 3 to 5.

Hmmm. I think I know why.

If you really want to know what’s going on in New Orleans, traditional media won’t be of much use.

Michael Barnett and several other folks from DirectNIC keep the entire world riveted by their reportages directly from the city devastated by the hurricane. If you haven’t been to their blog yet, you should. It’s as up, close, and personal as it gets. http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/.

Goodbye CNN. Hello blogging.

Today I had a meeting downtown and parked by the Hummingbird Centre, the main Torontonian ballet and opera venue (that is, until they complete the new and smashing The Canadian Opera building) that they routinely sell out.

The multi-level parking was packed so I had to leave my car on the very top, on the “roof”, which was level 6. As I took the stairs down, I just couldn’t help noticing a little touch they added to make it easier for the patrons remember where they left their car. Each level and exit was named after a particular ballet! So on my way down, I passed Madame Butterfly, and the Magic Flute, and the Swan Lake.

Would this trick alone produce more customers? Well, possibly. If I’m a ballet buff, I’ll remember that parking the next time I go there to catch a show. Every little touch like this, combined with other little touches, can tip the decision scale in your favour.

… is back on June 27, 2005, which is a Monday. This time at the Herb’s Private Lounge.

I love Herb’s. It is a place setup for business networking. Clean and stylish, not too fancy and definitely not opulent, it exemplifies business casual in venue design. The food alone is worth the trip.

Same drill as the last time: networking, dinner, workshop. And yes, I added a lot of new content and made it even more interactive. After you register, I will even send you your homework to complete prior to the event! You will want to get the most out of this event, right? That’s why the homework. But don’t worry, it won’t be much.

Here’s the registration link:

http://www.jumpstartcommunity.com/workshop.aspx?ID=75

Hope to see you at Herb’s.

My friend Geordie Allen (no relation to Woody mentioned in the last post), when explaining blogging to someone not familiar with the topic, says, “First of all, it’s legal.” (And invariably, he gets a laugh.)

Blogging is also profitable, I might add.

So profitable, in fact, that P&G had to include blogging into their marketing arsenal.

Since March, P&G has been using a blog to market their new Secret Sparkle Body Spray targeted at girls. Four fictitious characters, Van, Tiki, Rose, and PK (short for “peachy keen”), engage themselves in a careless chatter sparingly using teen jargon and WeIrD CaPiTaLiZaTioN, putting “like” in every sentence, dabbling into bad poetry (“I’m one girl/ In a big world…”), but never failing to promote the spray to their blog “sistahood”.

I can venture a guess that behind this thing is some smart male copywriter in his mid-forties, with receding hairline and back problems from too much work at his computer: Phrases like “carefully regimented exercise program” are a give-away. It’s actually fun to read! Check it out for yourself: http://www.sparklebodyspray.com.

If anything, it’s going to be an interesting experiment. I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot more such blogs in the near future. And kudos to P&G for being so un-corporate in their thinking and so bold in their moves.

Woody Allen in Small Time Crooks says, “I always wanted to learn how to spell Connecticut.” Well, I personally have no touble with Connecticut, but Kierkegaard is a different matter. And since this name has a lot to do with our today’s marketing lesson, I had to figure out the spelling.

Sören Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher who is considered the father of existentialism. This is not a lesson in philosophy; it’s a lesson in marketing. One (of many) Kierkegaard’s ideas should be of particular interest to us marketers and savvy entrepreneurs.

Kierkegaard maintained that every human beeing lives in their own universe.

Ta-da!

Every human being lives in their own universe! I live in mine. You live in yours. Your best prospect lives in hers.

When it comes to your marketing message, it has many important jobs to do, and the first one is to get your prospect to notice it (the message). And where does your prospect live? That’s right, in her own little universe! (Hey, great job! You’re catching up fast!)

So if you ever wondered why it was so difficult to get your prospects notice your marketing message, a Danish guy with a hard-to-spell name gave you an answer some 200 years ago.