Category Archives: Marketing

But What If It Doesn’t Work?

Posted on by Dave Mastovich

When we have an idea, one of the first things we ask ourselves is “But what if it doesn’t work?”

How many times does this prevent us from trying something new? How often do we accept the status quo even though we think there has to be a better way?

It’s OK to consider what might happen if an idea doesn’t work as long as we ask two other important questions:

“What if it does work?”

“What do we stand to lose by sticking with the current way of doing things?”

We subconsciously fight change. Our self-doubt and negative inner thoughts prevent us from proposing or implementing new ideas. We avoid or ignore problems and make irrational rationalizations like “That’s not my responsibility.”

Whether you are a team member, middle manager or senior leader, you owe it to yourself and your organization to focus on creative solutions that improve your customer experience, operational processes and overall bottom line.

You have to do your part to foster an environment of creativity and innovation. Challenge assumptions. Offer solutions rather than just pointing out problems. Ask questions of peers, bosses, subordinates and customers. Actively listen and think about what you hear.

Try following the 5 W’s Technique used by journalists, police officers and market researchers.  Ask and answer: Who? What? Where? When? Why?

*Who do you want to reach and influence? Clearly define your target markets. Learn how they think. What makes them tick? Why do they say both “yes” and “no?”

*What are you selling? Not just the mission statement or website copy points. What are you really selling?

*Where do we have a competitive advantage? What makes us different? Why do they want and need us?

*When can we maximize our opportunities? When do they (your target audiences) want and need the solution?

*Why aren’t we making it happen?

Instead of convincing yourself a new idea might not work, ask the 5 W’s. The answers will lead to creative solutions that enhance your customer experience.

How to Make March Madness Work for You

Posted on by Dave Mastovich

Solutions to help you grow…

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March Madness.

The phrase rolls off the tongue, triggers memories and signals what’s coming again, like it or not.

But where did the catchy name for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament come from and how did it become a cultural tradition?

The answers make for a case study in how grassroots marketing and creative story telling can build brands, create rituals and influence behavior.

The NCAA tournament celebrates its 75th Anniversary this year.  It wasn’t known as March Madness until 1982 when CBS broadcaster Brent Musberger borrowed the phrase used by The Illinois High School Association for their state basketball tournament since 1939.

But it’s not just a cool name. The NCAA tournament combines talented college players, fan loyalty and a win or go home format with creative messaging from partners like ESPN, CBS and hundreds of sponsors to win our hearts and minds.

How can you learn from March Madness and make your marketing better?

  • Make It About Them (us!): Are you ready to fill out your bracket? If not, you know you’re going to hear about it from someone, somewhere. It’s estimated 30 million people will complete an NCAA bracket. You can watch multiple games at the same time, on your TV, smart phone or desktop. Sponsors offer interactive promotions. Something for everyone.
  • Make an Emotional Impact: Video highlights become works of art with fast paced shots and inspirational music. Stories are told about players, coaches, families, schools and even mascots. The end result is an emotionally charged three-week event featuring Cinderella teams, heart breaking losses and amazing performances.
  • Make It Memorable: The Big Dance. Bracketology. Sweet Sixteen. Elite Eight. The Final Four. Now that’s memorable messaging.
  • Make Social Media Part of Your Marketing Mix: In 2012, more than a billion dollars was spent on marketing related to March Madness, surpassing even the Super Bowl. Social Media continues to take a bigger piece of that pie as sponsors engage customers with promotions like Northwestern Mutual’s Bracket Challenge. The NCAA and ESPN get in on the action with a Facebook page (400,000+ fans) and Tournament of Tweets (3 million).

Enjoy March Madness and make your marketing better.  Count it. Two points for you.

 

Brady, Manning: Super Success On and Off the Field

Posted on by Dave Mastovich

Solutions to help you grow…

It’s Super Bowl week and the story lines are plentiful with Ray Lewis retiring and the Harbaugh brothers coaching against each other.

Yet for me, it seems weird without Peyton Manning, Tom Brady or Ben Roethlisberger on the sidelines for only the second time in the past 12 years. Instead, the spotlight will be on quarterbacks Joe Flacco of the Ravens and San Francisco’s Colin Kaepernick.

Brady and Manning are hard acts to follow both on and off the field. In addition to winning Super Bowls and building Hall of Fame resumes, they both have built strong personal brands and landed lucrative endorsement deals. As you’d expect, their approach to marketing is as different as their styles of play.

Tom Brady and Peyton Manning exchange words after a game

Tom Brady and Peyton Manning exchange words after a game

Peyton takes the “every man” approach and pokes fun at himself or his brother. Since beginning his NFL career in 1998, Manning has pitched a whole lot of stuff including DirecTV, Gatorade, MasterCard, Oreos, Reebok, Sony, Wheaties and most recently Papa Johns.

Tom on the other hand sells the cool guy persona as he appears in ads for UnderArmor, Stetson, Dodge Dart, Smart Water and most recently UGGs. Yeah, I know. UGG’s. Where’d that come from?

Two great passers and pitchmen. Two major takeaways:

  • Be Yourself: Tell your story and be comfortable in your own skin. Otherwise, everyone sees through it. Manning’s ads might be perceived as a bit salesy but we know that’s just Peyton. Tom seems like a hipper, updated version of Joe Montana so we cut him some slack when he is a bit pretentious.
  • Make It About Them: Their ads focus on us while compelling us to watch them.  Peyton seems like a regular guy who just might give out a zillion Papa John’s pizzas. Tom makes it look easy while making you think that cologne might work for you too.

On the field, I hope the Brady/Manning era is over and Big Ben is back next year. Off the field, Tom and Peyton will probably continue to succeed because they tell their stories in a way we can relate to…most of the time.

Send us your rankings to BradyManning@massolutions.biz – here’s ours:

 

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Get Where You Want to Go!

Light Reading Archives

David M. Mastovich, MBA is President of MASSolutions, an integrated marketing firm focused on improving the bottom line for clients through creative selling, messaging and PR solutions. He’s also author of “Get Where You Want To Go: How to Achieve Personal and Professional Growth Through Marketing, Selling and Story Telling.” For more information, go to www.massolutions.biz.

 

Better Listening Leads to Better Results

Posted on by Dave Mastovich

It seems like an organization exists for just about everything. My company belongs to the Society for Healthcare Strategy and the Mystery Shopping Providers Association. I’m part of the National Speakers Association. You can probably rattle off a few that are specific to your industry or area of expertise as well.

So I guess it makes sense there’s an International Listening Association. Their mission is to advance the practice, teaching and research of listening throughout the world.

I hear that.

But I just enjoy their statistics, gleaned from years of studying the good, the bad and the ugly of listening. Here are a few nuggets:

 

  • 85% of what we know we have learned by listening.
  • 75% of the time we are distracted, preoccupied or forgetful.
  • We only recall about 50% of what was said immediately after we listen to someone talk.
  • In total, just 20% of what we hear will be remembered.
  • Less than 2% of us have had formal education about listening.
  • People listen through one of four primary styles: people, time, action or content oriented. Females are more likely to be people-oriented and males are more likely to be time or action oriented.

Say what?

I’m thinking it means listening is vital to leading, managing, marketing and selling. Your personal productivity and your company’s success will be enhanced via betterlistening. With that in mind, here are…drum roll please…

10 Ways to Improve Your Listening

1.     Let the speaker finish their thoughts, don’t interrupt

2.     Keep an open mind, don’t judge

3.     Listen without planning what you are going to say next

4.     Give feedback

5.     Pay attention to the speakers posture and body
language

6.     Stay focused

7.     Show respect

8.     Take notes

9.     Make eye contact to keep the speaker at ease

10.   Put as much effort into listening as the speaker puts into talking

Better listening leads to better results. And you don’t even need to join an organization to improve…

Just listen.

Assertive Not Aggressive

Posted on by Dave Mastovich

Solutions to help you grow…

Sometimes people are misperceived as aggressive or pushy when they confront others about an issue. Potential solutions and fresh ideas are ignored because the message was personalized and viewed negatively.

In other instances, the message is lost because tone and content move from assertive to personal. Emotions get in the way and prevent a healthy dialogue. Instead of solving the problem, we add to it by forcing our point of view on others.

Assertiveness involves striving for a win-win outcome by clearly communicating your needs, wants and thoughts, while acknowledging the needs of others.

If you perceive someone as aggressive, make sure it is not actually assertive behavior featuring a message you don’t want to hear. We often point out flaws in ‘style’ or ‘delivery’ when people confront difficult issues. It could simply be misreading of the situation or a move into self preservation mode. Either way, productivity and personal growth are tied to our ability to understand when others are offering solutions in an assertive manner instead of misperceiving it as aggressive behavior.

How do we avoid becoming aggressive ourselves?

Most people prefer to be assertive but unintentionally become aggressive due to a combination of lack of preparation and an inability to keep emotions in check.

Before confronting someone, think through or even write down what you are going to say. This enables you to clearly assess the nature of the problem, how it affects you, how you feel about it and what you want to change. Preparation also increases our understanding of where the other person is coming from and reduces our instinct to make it about them rather than the issue.

Listen to other perspectives and be direct and concise when explaining how you see the situation. Offer creative solutions and show a willingness to explore other options.

Being assertive can help you convey who you are and what you are about. It doesn’t always result in getting exactly what you want. But it does show you realize that other opinions matter and that you are interested in improving the situation.

David M. Mastovich, MBA, is the president of Massolutions, a Pittsburgh based Integrated Marketing firm that focuses on improving the bottom line for client companies through creative marketing, selling, messaging and customer experience enhancement.

Light Reading Archives 

Get Where You Want To Go!

With Digital and Physical Product Releases, Make It About Them

Posted on by Dave Mastovich

In a Harvard Business Review article Why Digital Media Require a Strategic Rethink authors Michael D. Smith and Rahul Telang make it clear that delaying product availability in low margin channels to maximize revenue in high margin channels is not effective.

Most customers choose their channel (hardcover vs e-book as one example) before choosing a product and they’re unlikely to jump channels. In reality, they are more likely to move from a digital channel to an illegal/pirated channel than to a physical channel.

For example, in December 2007 NBC removed its content from the iTunes Store, causing an 11% increase in piracy the following month with no increase in DVD sales.

Conversely, when NBC added its content to Hulu in 2009, piracy DROPPED by more than 20% while viewership remained unchanged.

Another example provided by Smith and Telang involves a major U.S. publisher that stopped providing Kindle editions and saw no increase in hardcover sales. When it reinstated the Kindle editions, its e-book sales were 50% lower than before the withdrawal. Customers had either given up trying to find digital versions of the publisher’s books or had pirated them.

The takeaway? Give the people what they want. Make content available physically and digitally at the same time. Don’t try to move customers from one channel to another one. In other words, it’s not about you. Make it about them.

Google

Spend Less, Get More-5 Steps to Integrated Marketing

Posted on by Dave Mastovich

Spend Less, Get More-5 Steps to Integrated Marketing

Light Reading is a series of communications from MASSolutions that sheds light on common business challenges and provides solutions to strengthen your bottom line.

What do senior leaders typically think when asked to commit more resources to messaging and selling? Decision makers tend to lump Marketing, PR, Communications and Advertising together and ask:

Do we really need that?

How much does it cost?

How will we know if it is working?

Isn’t (insert name of person or department) responsible for that?

Focus on Marketing ROI Needed

Marketing and messaging professionals passionately explain their ideas but often fail to convey the Return on Investment (ROI) in terms CEO’s, CFO’s and entrepreneurs are accustomed to hearing. The end result is a lack of buy-in.

Senior leaders also tend to lose patience with multiple departments or vendors (PR, Marketing, Corporate Communications, etc.) that rarely communicate with each other as well as they should. Each function or area sees things in their own biased way.

Sales or Business Development thinks they’re king because they bring in the business, others find them arrogant and demanding. Advertising thinks they’re cool and full of big ideas, others see them as full of something else. PR talks about framing the message, other departments wonder what they really do. The end result? Senior leaders think these areas are inefficient cost centers with overlapping, duplicative efforts.

Organizations talk about getting these departments to work together but become frustrated with mixed results attributed to the type of work and workers involved. Phrases like “You know those creative people,” or “That’s marketing. They’re different,” are used to explain it away.

How can your organization overcome this cycle of frustration?

Five Steps to Integration

Champion the idea of creating a true integrated marketing and PR program by focusing on these five strategic initiatives:

  1. Develop mutually agreed upon target markets that messaging and selling efforts will focus on and make sure each department knows and agrees on the target markets. For example, Sales often overlooks the importance of employees as a key target market while Corporate Communications sees this group as vital. Advertising sometimes focuses too much on the creative message and neglects key target markets. Communicating the specifics about each market segment is the first step toward successful integration.
  2. Find out what each target market wants by asking them, through multiple channels. While engaging a market research firm is the most formal research method, don’t overlook other ways to learn about target markets. Your Sales team can ask customers and prospects what they think and track results. Corporate Communications should be able to easily survey employees. Your methodology doesn’t have to be perfect. The key takeaway is ask your customers, internal and external, what they think and act accordingly.
  3. Develop a consistent message and require each department to live by it. Be vigilant about message consistency but also be flexible. For example, your sales team isn’t going to use the advertising slogan all the time. Tweak the message accordingly for each target market but ensure the overall theme is still conveyed. Consider secret shopping so you can learn what your customers are really seeing and hearing.
  4. Work with each department or vendor on clearly defining their goals and the market forces that impact their ability to achieve those goals. Develop a summary of each department or vendor’s specific roles and strengths. Convey these key points to everyone involved. The goal is to increase the level of understanding and respect across functions.
  5. Instill a Corporate-Wide Marketing ROI focus. Challenge your marketing and messaging professionals to provide rationale in terms of Marketing ROI Success Metrics. Ask them to work in conjunction with Finance to build the metrics. Report the success metrics to leaders and managers throughout the organization. The more they know about your marketing, selling and messaging strategy, the better.

 

Developing a true Integrated Marketing, PR and Selling program doesn’t just happen. But once you invest the time and effort, you will reap the benefits of a positive Marketing ROI.

David M. Mastovich, MBA, is the president of Massolutions, a Pittsburgh based Integrated Marketing firm that focuses on improving the bottom line for client companies through creative marketing, selling, messaging and customer experience enhancement.

Joe Camel Kicked Out by Gangrenous Foot

Posted on by Dave Mastovich

Could graphic imagery like a picture of a diseased lung on a pack of cigarettes reduce the number of smokers?

The Australian government is looking to find out.  New regulations that require Australian cigarette companies to cover 75 percent of the front of cigarette packs with health warnings and stunning images kicked in October 1st. Potential cigarette customers will now see 14 rotating pictures on the front of cigarette packes including a gangrenous foot, bloody urine in a toilet,  a diseased lung, a cancerous tongue or Bryan, a man who died at 34 from lung cancer but wanted others to learn how smoking since he was a teenager led to his death.

Companies can not use trademarks on the cigarette packaging but must use designated font type and point sizes.

The legislation was passed about a year ago and also bans “decorative ridges, embossing, bulges, or other irregularities of shape or texture.”

The World Health Organization supports the requirements which might lead to other countries implementing similar standards.

It will be interesting to see how cigarette makers respond. They have a tough story to tell and many of the industry’s brands were built through iconic imagery like the Marlboro Man and Joe Camel.

What do you think? Should there be regulations on cigarette marketing? What would you do if you had to tell their story under these marketing limitations?

 

 

 

 

The Issue Not the Instance

Posted on by Dave Mastovich

Solutions to help you grow…

In a survey of more than 2,000 consumers, 48% said poor service led them to change companies in the past year. Another study asked respondents to describe their most recent buying experience and half said they had at least one problem. It seems like we are always hearing, seeing or reading about customers having terrible experiences.

When our service is lacking, what do we tell the client or customer? When we miss an internal deadline or fail to hit a goal, what do we say to our boss?

“We were crazy busy and things got pushed back a little bit.”

“(INSERT SUPPOSED CRISIS) happened so I had to spend time fixing it.”

“He was a difficult customer. He was impatient and rude.”

“(NAME) was working on that and I had to wait for her to finish it.”

“Our price was too high so we lost the sale.”

And the list could go on…

Sometimes legitimate roadblocks keep us from meeting deadlines, being on time or reaching our goals. However, bosses, peers and clients are often frustrated and perceive the responses as excuses rather than reality.

Why the disconnect?

It could be the focus is on the instance rather than the issue.

If internal and external customers are continually disappointed or you regularly miss deadlines or goals, it doesn’t really matter what happened in the most recent instance. The issue is you do not deliver what you promise. After the fact, time is wasted rationalizing with phrases like “We were crazy busy,” and self improvement opportunities are lost.

You obviously need to attempt to fix ‘the instance’ as soon as possible. But, more importantly, you need to concentrate on the issue—the reason why deadlines aren’t met or client service is lacking–and how to improve your skills in this area.

Set clear, specific targets and prioritize activities to achieve goals and meet deadlines. Follow-up with your boss, peers, subordinates and clients regularly to make sure milestones within the action plan are being met. Listen to the customer and provide value added service or a discount when something doesn’t go as well as expected.

And, stay away from those tired, old excuses.

The next time you are asked why something didn’t go as planned, take personal responsibility and focus on the issue not the instance.

David M. Mastovich, MBA, is the president of Massolutions, a Pittsburgh based Integrated Marketing firm that focuses on improving the bottom line for client companies through creative marketing, selling, messaging and customer experience enhancement.

Creativity and Innovation Lead to More Sales

Posted on by Dave Mastovich

Solutions to help you grow…

In today’s hyper competitive environment, your organization has to relentlessly pursue innovation. Creativity can lead to new ideas that become competitive advantages.

It’s also no longer enough for Sales, PR and Communications to tell your company’s story. Employees throughout the organization need to become de facto members of your Integrated Marketing team.

How do you create an environment of creativity and innovation?

Ask and answer these three questions:

  1. Who are we trying to reach and influence? Clearly define and drill down your target markets and communicate to everyone in your organization about these segmented groups. How do they think? What moves them? Why do they say ‘Yes’ to your company? What makes them say ‘No?’ Explain your target markets in detail to your entire organization so everyone knows the specifics.
  2. What are we really selling? Seattle’s Pike Place Fish Market isn’t just selling fish. We can buy fish at thousands of places and barely remember doing so. Pike Place is selling the experience just like Starbucks and Apple. Today’s marketplace is driven by our experiences. Asking ‘What are we really selling?’ and tailoring your message to that experience can increase sales and enhance your brand.
  3. How can we tweak our offerings to better meet our customer’s needs?
    Make gathering customer feedback part of your formal sales process. Have each salesperson ask their clients and prospects how to change and improve the company’s offerings with questions like: “What are the top three things you would change about our company?” “What’s the one thing we could do to make you happier?”

Coach your sales team on how to ask the questions and track the results. Respond to what customers and prospects say. Be willing to change, innovate and create something new. Tell customers and prospects what you learned and what you did about it. Then, make the ask and close the business.

David M. Mastovich, MBA, is the president of Massolutions, a Pittsburgh based Integrated Marketing firm that focuses on improving the bottom line for client companies through creative marketing, selling, messaging and customer experience enhancement.