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The alternate title for the 1964 movie, Dr. Strangelove, was How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. My story is not about a nuclear holocaust, but let’s call it How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Plan.
Plans Get Things Done!
You write a plan to detail some actions you intend to take to achieve a goal. As a team, you fight and argue, do some research and analysis, make a decision, and then you write it down. That’s the magic part! When you write things down it is like Moses just staggered through the door bearing a graven tablet.
Here is what happens otherwise. Frank says, “Let’s advertise the Biggie Wiggle in the Sun-Times on Sunday!” Jane smiles sagely, and says, “That seems reasonable,” neglecting to voice, “over my dead body, Frank, you fatuous fool!” Clarence says nothing, as he furiously texts a message to the agency to place an ad in the Sentinel-Clarion instead.
Scott McNealy, chairman of Sun Microsystems apparently likes to say, “Agree and commit, disagree and commit, or stay out of the way.” Perfect, Scott!
How About Marketing Plans?
Marketing plans tell how you are going to sell something. They are only about getting things done!
Please don’t confuse marketing plans and business plans. Business plans are mostly used to convince investors to part with their funds. They expect to see certain important information, and adhering to a standard template makes sure they get it. If you bring the template-driven business plan mindset to a marketing plan, it will inhibit creativity. Marketing is a creative process, and it should not feel like filling in tax forms.
Hallmarks of a Great Marketing Plan
So what makes a marketing plan great?
It’s short, so you can refer to it in meetings and read it again
and again.
It’s simple and clear, so there is no misunderstanding or wiggling
out of it.
It drives results, because it is based on measurement and
done/not done.
It’s focused, only planning for the things you need, not filling
in a template.
But most of all, it’s creative. This is the secret, and the hardest
thing to achieve in a plan.
Short is Good
My daughter’s university offered to send out a book, to discuss during Parents’ Weekend. I signed up, mostly to get the free book. We spent an hour or so discussing the turgid tome’s deeper insights and implications. Then a brave sixtyish man at the back of the room said, “I never finished the book. Did anyone else?” Not one of the eighty voices piped up. Until then I had been feeling guilty.
So it is with big fat plans! Most of them never get read, and if perused briefly are then put to better use, holding doors open or filling bookshelves.
Simple and Clear
My colleague, Craig Watkins, has taught me that three actions, clearly expressed, will get done and nine will be ignored, and that two compelling reasons are better than five strong ones. Keep your voice active, and always use five words when fifteen would do.
Drive Results
Express your goals in terms that can and will be measured. Revenue is a goal in every one of our marketing plans, and market share never is, because it is very hard to measure. When you describe an action, make sure that it is unambiguous. Get 50 page hits a day is good; improve brand image is meaningless.
Focus
We talked earlier about the pitfalls of templates. I used to think that our clients would expect a marketing plan to look like a business plan, so I tried to work in some “standard” formats. I even suggested on our website that a plan should have headings like:
Yow! It makes a creative process painful, and doesn’t even work! Focus on what you are going to do, and leave out the rest.
Be Creative
We are taught to plan an outline before we write anything. The best writers never do that. Humans don’t think linearly! Our minds flit from idea to idea like hummingbirds to flowers. If you try to write a plan linearly, all the creative ideas that you had to grow the business will evaporate or seem worthless. Malcolm Gladwell talks about this in Blink, his brilliant book about “how we think without thinking.”
Here is how we stay creative at iWrite Marketing:
First, we understand our client’s business. We listen a lot and use Google, making lots of notes. If we think of ideas or questions, we write them down.
Then we Mind Map (see previous post Mind Mapping). We love it, because unlike linear processes, Mind Mapping lets you write down anything, no matter how random. It encourages creative thought.
Now, we build on the ideas in the Mind Map, using what we call a First Thoughts document. We write the ideas down in any order, elaborate on them, but never try to structure them or add headings. These jumbled thoughts are now sufficiently robust that they won’t fly away in the stiff breeze of logic and structure. We can talk them over with our clients.
At last, we write the plan as a series of modules. One is used to Articulate the business, describing the product, the customers, and other key components. Another module might describe communication tools like the website. Still others might be particular to our client’s business.
We used to hate it when we got to writing the marketing plan, because the linear thinking would mute our creativity and take a lot of the joy out of it. With this approach, we keep the creativity and the fun! You can do the same.
Ultimately, as Harry S. Truman said, “It’s not the plan, it’s the planning.”
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Mind Mapping is a tool for thinking about things, finding meaning, discovering connections, and generating new, creative ideas.
I learned about Mind Mapping from Daphne Gray-Grant, who writes a great newsletter called The Publication Coach. She teaches writing, but I value her advice on thinking and creativity too. I strongly recommend her book, 8½ Steps to Writing Faster, Better which includes a section on Mind Mapping.
We use Mind Mapping for everything we write, and to think about our business, to make decisions, and to develop presentations. As Daphne says, it is like brainstorming with yourself.
Take a sheet of paper-I like to use 11″ x 17″ for a wide-open landscape-write down an important idea, and draw a circle around it. That discourages you from writing too much. It might be Get new customers, for example.
Now, write down the next thought that comes to mind. It might be Ask Existing Customers. Don’t judge or evaluate, don’t think about it too much, and don’t try to structure it. Be like a hippie blowing bubbles in the breeze.
Each idea will stimulate others. Your unconscious will throw up the best ideas. It is joyful and creative. Don’t make it into work. Leave it and come back. Sleep on it. It will continue to grow and generate new possibilities.
A Mind Map is never really finished. It remains a realm of possibility, but at some point I gravitate away from it and start to write, or make a decision. I don’t really need it anymore, because the ideas have taken root in my mind.
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Entrepreneurial companies looking for investment are used to preparing a pitch- traditionally a 10 or 12 slide presentation that wraps up the story of the company in such a compelling way that hard-bitten venture capitalists just can’t resist.
Every company needs a Marketing Pitch.
It should also be brief. It will tell your story in an engaging and compelling way, and leave the listener wanting more.
Storytelling is everything. It takes your audience back to Mom reading The Five Little Firemen to them, snuggled up together in bed. Did Mom ever say, “Now on this page, we see the Five Little Firemen using the hook and ladder truck to provide sufficient elevation to reach the attic window and rescue the Jones’s Jolly Fat* Cook?”
Of course not! That would be very boring. She just told you the story, and made all the Whheeee and Whhoooo siren sounds as the fire truck went careering around the corners.
So just tell the story of your products and your customers, and how you are going to wallop your competitors, or partner with them. Tell them how people will see you and how you will be different. Show why it is a good business. And finally, tell how customers will come to know about your product and why they will want to buy it.
Use slides if you have to, but just a few words to punctuate and underline your story. A few pictures would be even better. I can still see the unexpectedly beaming face of the lovely cook, as she stepped onto the ladder.
That’s about it for marketing!
*Sorry about the offensive wording-such were the Golden Books of the 1950’s!
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My wife, Cindy Roberts, loves to cook and really loves to bake. She has wanted to start a cooking business for years, but now she is actually doing it. Cindelicious, as we named her company, faces all the marketing challenges of any startup, whether it is selling cakes and cookies or iPhone apps. We can learn from her experience.
Starting a Company is a Messy Business
In Commonsense Marketing for Entrepreneurs, we believe that the first phase of the entrepreneurial marketing process is always to Articulate. In other words, to describe, in clear, simple, unequivocal terms, your product, customers, competitors, value, reputation, delivery channel, and price.
The MBA textbooks would have you carefully planning each step, researching the market, building complex spreadsheets, and contemplating the far horizon, while touching your lips with an arm of your round tortoiseshell glasses.
Not so simple in the real world. Starting a company is a messy business, even if you are not diving into fifty-pound bags of flour. Cindy had the one thing that every entrepreneur needs-an unshakeable belief in herself. She got it by cooking and baking every day, sometimes failing, but working out what went wrong and fixing it. She got it by tasting dishes at restaurants and then recreating them without a recipe. She even worked in the patisserie at Wegmans’ flagship store for a year. She just knew that, sooner or later, she would be a food entrepreneur.
If You Can’t Say It, You Can’t Sell ItSM
So Cindy’s first big decision was settling on a product to sell. That is every entrepreneur’s toughest decision. Most of us are confident in our talents and passionate about our business, but when asked what it is we are selling, we start mumbling, waving our arms, or talking about technology. So, first articulate what your product is! It took Cindy half a lifetime to do this.
It All Started in a Garage
Twenty years ago, we moved into a new neighborhood and Cindy heard about the huge garage sale that brought thousands of people to the area every two years. Being Taiwanese, she decided to sell Chinese dumplings, beef sticks, and fried rice, because our friends loved them. I looked at her wisely, positioned my tortoiseshell glasses, and ventured the professional marketing opinion that she might sell a little, but certainly would not make a profit.
By early afternoon on the first day, I was rushing to the Asian food store for another twenty -five pound bag of rice. People came back two or three times over the course of the weekend. Perhaps Cindy could start a business, because she had a product that customers of all kinds loved, at a price that gave them great value. But it was not so simple. A delivery channel that brings customers to you every two years for two days is clearly not enough. A few people placed telephone orders, but demand soon waned.
Bread at $15 a Loaf
Later, Cindy began baking breads-crispy French artisan breads, robust organic multigrain loaves, even sweet, shiny Chinese breads that brought a tear to the Asian eye. Again, customers loved them. But bread takes a long time in the mixing, proofing, rising, kneading, and baking. Huge mixers and enormous ovens make it practical, but Cindy could only handle two loaves at a time. She might have made a profit by offering the bread at $15 a loaf, but customers would have had a poor opinion of its value. So she made a few, made a loss, and did it for love!
Building Reputation One Failure at a Time
Over the years, Cindy’s enthusiasm soared briefly for bubble tea, pulled pork barbecue, Chinese sweets, and even selling fried rice from a the back of a van, but each sputtered and fell to earth in the face of business reality.
At every step, however, with every setback in finding a product to sell, Cindy was building her reputation and her brand. She had been making cookies and cakes for years. She would find recipes from many sources, try them, and then experiment with modifications. She would routinely reduce the sugar and substitute whole grain flours, to make them healthier, but would never sacrifice taste. Tasting them all was a tough job, but someone had to do it, and my personal sacrifice was so great that I ended up at Weightwatchers®. Her lemon-anise biscotti, mocha-chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies, cheesecakes, and carrot cakes started cults and inspired deviant behavior among solid, churchgoing folks.
Cindy, Mrs. Fields, and Famous Amos
The happy ending in Cindy’s product pilgrimage, is that she found, like Mrs. Fields and Famous Amos before her, that people love cookies and cakes, and that even a small-scale baker can make lots of them, sell them at reasonable price, and make a profitable living. If the product is excellent!
Cindy worried about competitors at first, but her fears proved groundless. There are many bakers, professional and semi-professional, but there is also a great abundance of hungry gourmets. Some bakers have become her unwitting mentors. Blogging amateurs in Taiwan have given her as much inspiration and information as the websites of famous pastry chefs.
Social Media Meets Word of Mouth
Now, Cindy’s first instinct was to sell the cakes and cookies through cafés, a ready-made delivery channel. This was not a good idea. They don’t sell that many and they demand a substantial discount, since they are in business too.
So she went back to the basics: selling direct to local customers. She photographs everything that she bakes, with a simple studio setup, and displays photographs of all her baked goods on Facebook-on both her personal page and the Cindelicious page. She plans to Tweet that new batches of cookies and cakes are afoot, so that her followers on Twitter can call for a fix. There is no more powerful marketing tool than word of mouth. Friends are spreading the word for events like weddings, graduation parties, and birthdays, so her calendar is full. Cindy plans to teach me a thing or two about marketing. I am all ears.
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Companies sometimes spend too much time doing detailed market research, when Just Enough Research would do!
In looking at market opportunity, for example, an order of magnitude estimate is often sufficient, at least to start. One of our clients makes consumables for a particularly large and expensive scientific instrument. In looking at whether to enter the market or not, we were able to say that there are roughly a few thousand of these instruments in use in the United States. We could find more accurate information, but that estimate was good enough. A hundred or ten million units would constitute very different business cases, however.
Someone has said that Google will give you 80% of the information you need, and that the other 20% is probably not worth knowing. That is our experience too. In fact, we follow the 80/20 rule, for that very reason, and because the last 20% takes 80% of the time.
Although we are committed to lean marketing, we can certainly see the virtue of some market research. On the other hand, Apple, the marketing company we most admire, doesn’t do any market research, and Steve Jobs says, "We figure out what we want. And I think we’re pretty good at having the right discipline to think through whether a lot of other people are going to want it, too. That’s what we get paid to do."
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The difference between good marketing and great marketing is deep thinking. By which I mean not only rational, methodical, grind-it-out decision making, which is certainly important, but also innovative, creative thought, which happens mostly when you talk, sleep, shower, or walk the dog.
I do not include official brainstorming sessions, with whiteboards, lots of butcher paper and markers, and bounding facilitators, because they are the least likely source of original thinking. Eschew them if you can!
Tom Watson Was Right!
In the 1920’s, Thomas J. Watson Sr., the founder of IBM, developed the slogan THINK. It proliferated virally, showing up in IBM offices, plants, and company publications throughout the world, until it pushed out other slogans and was memorialized in wood, stone, and bronze. It lives to this day, and helps account for IBM’s success.
Hoping the Spaghetti Sticks
Too often in marketing the decision dialogue goes something like this, "Well, we always run ads for our Piffley Nudelgummer in the June issue of Spelunking Today, before the annual SpelunkOFest trade show in Las Vegas. I think that we might splurge for a half-page this year!"
Instead of developing objectives for the business and the products, and working forward through strategies and actions to achieve them, we fall back on old habits, supported by inconclusive data. If our marketing is not working, we flail about, trying different messages and media, in the hope that some spaghetti will stick to the wall.
Enough criticizing and complaining, you say, show us something that worked. Tell us a story about successful thinking!
Kodak Ruled the World
Once upon a time, Eastman Kodak Company dominated the world market for professional motion picture film, with an almost obscene 85 to 90% market share. It was a very good product, supported by an incredibly broad and deep organization of sales, application, and technical specialists. The few competitors included Japan’s Fuji Photofilm, Agfa-Gevaert in Belgium and Germany, and Orwo in East Germany. Their films were generally not as good as Kodak’s, and they could not afford the level of support that Kodak offered.
By the early 1980’s, however, Fuji had developed some excellent films to compete with Eastman Color film for feature, television, and documentary production. You could argue about the relative color rendition, sharpness, and graininess of the Fuji and Eastman products, but there was no denying that Fuji films were very good, and their prices were lower. A few prestigious directors shot features in Fujicolor and relaxed, comfortable Kodakers, used to a good night’s sleep and a hearty breakfast, began to toss and turn and get indigestion.
Nowhere was this more true than in Asia, home to Fuji. The Asian market was very price sensitive, and Fuji’s costs of shipping and support were lower too.
Kodak Marketer Thinks Deeply!
The natural path for Paul Hults, the motion picture marketing director for the Asian region, would have been to increase advertising, or give better prizes at the annual awards ceremonies in Bangkok, Bombay, or Hong Kong. He could have ordered a detailed market research study of the local film industries in many countries. Or called several expensive international meetings.
But Hults thought deeply about the complete Eastman Color film product. The film itself was part of the product, but so were the complex chemical processes that Kodak invented to develop it, the quality control surveys that Kodak provided, and the well-trained teams in every country and at headquarters in Rochester, New York.
Tie Free Premium Service to the Use of Kodak Products
If we could provide even more service, Hults figured, and tie it to the use of Kodak films, then producers and labs who were wavering toward Fuji might have second thoughts.
Hults proposed the idea of putting a motion picture technical consultant in the region, to travel from country to country, and lab to lab, working with them to solve technical problems and establish the highest standards of quality.
This article is not about me, but suffice to say that Graeme Roberts was that lucky consultant. It was a great job, not just because of the extraordinary training I received in Rochester, Chicago, and Hollywood over the course of a year, and the opportunity to travel widely and experience many cultures in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, but because Paul Hults’s vision was dead right.
Deep Thinking Saved the Day
Over the next several years, motion picture labs from Beijing to Bombay, Baghdad to Bangkok, saw real improvement in the quality of their output. A technical problem that almost shut down the one motion picture lab in South Africa was solved, and Kodak kept the business, despite threats of a complete switch to Fuji.
Fuji still sold some film, but it was never able to establish a real beachhead in the market, despite making some outstanding products. Paul Hults had to fight hard to establish a job that did not exist, and to train someone for a whole year, but Kodak’s entire investment was miniscule in comparison to the business it kept and grew.
To this day, Kodak still dominates the relatively strong market for motion picture film, although digital distribution is at last having an impact, as digital cinematography will in the future. Its longevity is due, in no small part, to a marketing heritage that viewed the complete product as a great deal more than a roll of film.
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Technology-based businesses often think of marketing as a cost to avoid until after the product launch party. Then the pressure is on to go to market, to get the product out there, to start bringing in revenue! The marketing you will do then is practical and tactical, to drive sales.
Starting marketing late is a big mistake!
Developing products without marketing input is like buying clothes without looking at them or trying them on. They probably won’t fit, and they certainly won’t be great.
Bill Davidow, legendary Senior VP of Marketing & Sales at Intel, and marketing architect of the phenomenally successful x86 series microprocessors, says that engineers invent devices and marketers invent products. Use marketing experience and skills to help define and develop great products, right from the outset.
Does that mean that you should employ a marketing person, or even a team, at the start of the project? Probably not! The early stages are best covered by contractors or consultants who can work when you need them. You are not yet selling anything, so the marketing work is focused on articulation, information gathering, analysis, and decision making. When the time does come to employ a marketing team for product launch you will know what to look for to recruit the right people.
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Most buying decisions take all of 30 seconds, whether we face a sales person, a politician, or an evangelist.
Alex Pentland, a computer scientist at MIT’s Media Lab, says that we base our buying decisions less on what is said, and more on how it is said. “The sale was probably made within the first few seconds, guided by signals you did not even perceive,” he explains.
So should we limit all sales presentations to less than a minute? Not at all! I will explain why.
Chimpanzees and Me
Human beings lived in social groups long before we had language, and like apes and chimpanzees, our close evolutionary cousins, we communicated through displays of power, meaningful noises, and facial expressions. These non-linguistic behaviors and simple instincts for social display and response—I call it animal talk—are still far more important than the verbal communication and rational thinking of our modern minds.
In a 1992 study, Nalini Ambady of Tufts University and Robert Rosenthal of the University of California, Riverside found that by analyzing an instructor’s body language in 30 seconds of soundless video they could predict how about 70% of college students would rate the instructor.
When asked why they liked or disliked the instructors, the students gave reasons like friendliness, or the clarity of their lectures, demonstrating the human ability to rationalize after the decision had been made.
What Does Strong Animal Talk Makes Us Feel?
What do we feel when animal talk is powerful and effective—even charismatic? First, we want to trust, which is the foundation of any buying decision. In business, we trust people primarily on their integrity, competence, and ability to deliver.
I would argue that we also want to please a powerful communicator, and, in a sense, to become one with them. It is no surprise that trust and these two factors are also the elements of sexual attraction and religious fervor. Apple enthusiasts fly around the world for the opening of the newest Apple store, expecting nothing more than a T-shirt. A recent study scanned the brains of such brand enthusiasts using fMRI, as they listened to words pertaining to the brand. The area of the brain that “lit up” brightly was the same area that bursts with neuronal activity when deeply religious people hear terms referring to the divine!
What Took You So Long?
If buyers make the real decision in 30 seconds, why does the process of selling or campaigning often take so long?
None of us wants to admit that non-verbal communication that we cannot even fully describe or quantify is our primary influence. Imagine explaining to your Board that you just had a great feeling about the IBM sales rep, that you liked the way she looked you in the eye, and that you really felt listened to and understood. And let’s face it; there are always objective, logical factors to consider, no matter how strong our animal instincts are.
If we do have a strong sense of the rightness of the relationship within the first minute or two, we can look at the rest of the sales process in two ways: rationalization or validation.
Sometimes we spend that time rationalizing our irrational decision, backing it up with plausible facts and arguments to make us look reasonable and logical. I once bought a Renault 16, the original hatchback, on pure impulse, willingly succumbing to the fast-talking dealer. I then had to concoct a reasonable and rational argument for my largely irrational action. I am sure that friends and family saw through it.
For the most part, however, I would take a less cynical view of the post-decision process. We may decide in an instant, but we then validate the decision by considering the facts. We are strongly disposed toward buying from a particular individual or team, but we then spend time with them and their competitors to gather more information, analyze it, and make a somewhat objective decision.
First Impressions Can Be Wrong
In my experience, however, there are far too many factors to consider and weight, and objectivity is largely a myth. The animal talk will probably prevail. The real value of spending this time may be to test the validity of your initial response to the person and the animal talk.
Dan and Chip Heath make this point in Fast Company, June 2009 under the heading Talk is Cheap: When first impressions lead to second thoughts.
First, Be an Animal
So prepare a thorough, logical, and compelling sales presentation addressing your customer’s needs, BUT remember that its purpose is to support and validate the powerful animal talk impression that you make in the first 30 seconds.
No amount of coaching could turn Al Gore into Bill Clinton, but we can all be better animals. Here are five ways to improve your animal talk:
1. Always talk face-to-face if you can.
2. Look people in the eye, stand up straight, look confident, and shake hands firmly.
3. Listen and respond—it’s more important than talking.
4. Be sensitive to people and read their emotions.
5. Be enthusiastic and passionate. Your passion becomes theirs.
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Whether you are selling a product or making a speech, you have to know your audience. First, you need to segment your market, and make sure that you have grouped the customers who share the same needs and can be communicated with in the same way.
That is not enough. Try talking to a segment–it doesn’t work. There are still lots of different people, and you want to talk to them as individuals.
Here is what you need to do. Choose a person or two in each segment, and write a profile of them. You can describe someone that you know personally, but don’t let familiarity drive you into too much detail. You just need to get that person into your mind, so that you can think about their needs and attitudes, and work out what you will say to them.
Sometimes, if I have to explain an idea or a new approach, I find that I am getting writer’s block, and constantly changing the voice and level of communication. Here is what I do. I turn it into a letter to Bin. Bin is an old friend, originally from Shanghai, China, who is super smart, insightful, open, and generous. When I write to him, the words flow like water from a tap. I know him, I know how to talk to him, and I know that he will understand.
When I’m done, I delete, ‘Dear Bin.’ He has never seen any of this writing, but he helps me out every time.
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