Janet Lee Johnson | The Art of Marketing

This post isn’t exactly ‘publish or perish,’ but it is definitely born of a push to publish. It’s been weeks since my last confession here. I’m hoping an explanatory post will help those who’ve:

• Been awaiting a response to an overdue email from me
• Gotten used to a certain rhythm of tweets
• Been wondering why I’m almost impossible to schedule these days

…to understand why. But mostly, this post is to help me feel better about finally being back here, blogging.

Full-time Focus

It seems I’m a contrarian once again: millions are leaving corporate work. I’ve just taken a five-month, full-time assignment within a corporation.

Just as social media has heated to the point where I have been invited to speak almost every week on the subject; my focus has shifted (for the past few weeks anyway) to traditional marketing strategy and best-practices in communications.

And I must say, I love the pace, the practice, and the product. (And, apparently, alliterations.)

I’m reticent to say exactly whom I’m working for yet - especially in such a public forum. But I shall “let the cat out of the bag” as soon as possible. I’m just awaiting permission. I hold client trust and confidentiality dear. I’m not one to speak about any client without express permission. Patience, please…

Missing Social Media

As a result, I’ve lived almost completely off the social media grid for weeks. It’s been an interesting hiatus. As time has gone by, I’ve gotten increasingly twitchy about my social interactions.

Not so much on Facebook or Twitter, but here. On my blog. Which has surprised me.

I’ve spent more time on Twitter recently, and have really appreciated the discipline and creativity of 140 characters. And (as a business tool) I’ve been a huge proponent of clients exploring the possibilities of the micro-blogging platform. So those who’ve listened to me for years might be surprised at the fact that I’m really

Missing my Blog…

My blog! I actually have been:

• Visualizing the date listings down the side of the page here, each day wondering when July 2009 will show up in the Archives… list.
• Trying to imagine what I’d write about next that would make George Dearing want to syndicate another post over on his Content Management Connection blog. (He’s got fabulous taste, and is selective, so this one won’t show up over there…)
• Ruminating mostly, though, about my readers; two of whom encouraged me to just get back to writing. (Thanks again, Jeremy and Georell!)

Turns out my blog is a real relationship… Between me and my thoughts. Between me and my readers. It’s sometimes a conversation, and sometimes a voice in the wilderness. But it’s a relationship I’ve nurtured for almost five years now.

So tonight I feel better. Not for the Archives… list being updated. Nor for the content (or lack thereof) of this particular post. I feel better for my reconnection to this relationship. This is a purely selfish post.

Sometimes, simply doing the thing you really miss is enough.

Have a look at what the Obama team has done from a media perspective to amplify Obama’s speech (thanks Huffington Post!):

“Eager to spread the president’s message as widely as possible, the tech-savvy White House orchestrated a live Webcast of the speech on the White House site; remarks translated into 13 languages; a special State Department site where users could sign up for speech highlights; and distribution of excerpts to social networking giants MySpace, Twitter and Facebook.”

None of us have the pull of the White House, but each of us have the power to amplify our messages through new channels.

The key is to have a strategy, great content, and relationships established online in these channels before you need them. Go!

There’s a kerfuffle brewing about censorship at eMusic over on TechDirt, which covered a very stupid move by eMusic - editing people’s comments on their blog post.

“We just wrote about the PR nightmare facing eMusic for announcing both a price increase and its first major record label signing at the same time — leading many to assume that the price increase was due to the Sony Music deal. Some in our comments pointed out that eMusic subscribers were protesting in a variety of places — including on Twitter, where they were using the hashtag (used to designate a unique cause or event): #emusicfail. And, as usually happens in such situations, many of the hundreds of commenters on eMusic’s own blog post on the deal mentioned the Twitter hashtag, and encouraged others to start using it as well, while making their protests public. So, how did eMusic address these angry customers?

It apparently made them disappear.”

Now I’m the first to tell any business their blog is their living room, and they can control who comes there and comments. But to actually edit the comments themselves? Epic #Fail. Epic #emusicfail.

You either publish a comment or not. It’s your choice. But don’t edit a comment. And you sure as heck better not edit it after the fact! And when commenters are customers? For fun, have a look at the comments on the TechDirt post. It’ll give you an idea of what people think about the act.

And for even more fun, check out the original post over on the eMusic blog - there have been (so far) 867 comments, many with salty language that hasn’t been removed, so they’re extremely selective about their editing.

What does the business media think about Twitter? Three stories will help you understand.

A Deep Dive into Twitter

1) Time Magazine’s cover article “How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live” starts out with one of the best first lines I’ve ever read about Twitter:

“The one thing you can say for certain about Twitter is that it makes a terrible first impression…”

And it goes on to talk about the incredible innovation that’s happened around the Twitter platform in the past two years, with more than 11,000 applications built using Twitter - my favorite example on NPR a couple of weeks ago was one that helps plants Tweet when they need water - and the fact that users created the @ reply convention that turned Twitter from a broadcast-only medium to a conversation medium.

….And don’t get me started about the usefulness of hashtags - which Twitter users also came up with - capturing events or topics for immediate recall. Take a look at the #140tc conference tweets from a couple of weeks ago for an example of a Twitter conference unfolding before your eyes.

Editors Embrace Twitter

2) A little blurb from The Daily Beast that covers the fact that Twitter usage - via TweetDeck - has taken down the NY Times computer system:

“Further proof that print-based communication are on their way out? At the offices of The New York Times, Twitter usage has become so rampant that it brought down the Gray Lady’s computer system…. NYT stopped short of actually discouraging the use of Twitter, promising to look for an alternative that is “both safe and easy to use, for both casual and power users.” Admitting you have a problem is the first and hardest step.” - Gawker

Anyone who thinks editors and analysts don’t use Twitter is completely and utterly wrong. So marketers better learn how to use this medium to reach the media.

Hint: a pitch in 140 characters is a complete relief to most journalists!

How Twitter Compares to Other Social Networks

3) And then there’s the Harvard Business Review weighing in on Twitter’s usage and demographics, telling us:

“Twitter’s usage patterns are also very different from a typical on-line social network. A typical Twitter user contributes very rarely. Among Twitter users, the median number of lifetime tweets per user is one. This translates into over half of Twitter users tweeting less than once every 74 days.

….At the same time there is a small contingent of users who are very active. Specifically, the top 10% of prolific Twitter users accounted for over 90% of tweets. On a typical online social network, the top 10% of users account for 30% of all production.”

To sum up all three articles, we are only beginning to see the innovation and usage of Twitter. Just as the media jumped into the blogosphere years before business did, so are they jumping into the Twitterverse. Apparently Robert Scoble said the following at the #140tc conference (I saw it quoted from my desk here in Portland, and it’s been haunting me since):

“…we are at the command-line era of Twitter.”

What You can Do About Twitter

So what should people do about it? Well, first, go grab your brand’s handle on Twitter. I’d argue that that’s what’s driving most of the HBR’s findings… people are gearing up, trying to find meaning, and preparing to get over that first awful impression.

I’ll be covering how to get started on Twitter in a full-day, hands-on social media workshop June 19 here in Portland.

Would love to have you join us and learn how to get started so it suits you and your business.

When I was at Marqui, we transformed a technology-centric brand to a prospect-centric brand quite successfully. I inherited a technical software company look in Maestro CMS, a regional Canadian software company looking to reinvent itself.

The goal of the new executive team was to create the “salesforce.com” for marketers in Marqui. Our product would help marketers manage their web site, launch their own email campaigns; anything it took to help marketers communicate online with customers and prospects and measure the results.

We needed a different degree of brand engagement with our prospects as we broke into the United States. We were in an incredibly fractious market, and needed to quickly stand out from the rest of the software companies fighting for marketers’ attention. But first, we needed to figure out who we were, given our daunting objectives and the new team in place.

Marqui, Meet Your Brand Promise

First we went through a series of exercises to profile ourselves as an organization, and our promise to the world. Some interesting findings emerged. Our newly formed executive team’s attributes were largely dominated by the following:

• Independent-minded
• Self-sufficient
• Adventurous
• Restless
• Ambitious
• Curious
• Take a stand

These “Explorer” tendencies resolved into the following brand and (product or company) attributes:

• To help people feel free (Marqui freed marketers from relying on others)
• Marqui was rugged and sturdy (Had all the features marketers needed)
• To help people express their individuality (Marqui helped enforce a company’s brand, which is their individuality)
• Can be purchased for ‘on the go’ (Software as a Service – could access Marqui from anywhere)
• Wants to differentiate from a successful ‘regular guy’ brand (Our vision - develop a Center for Marketing Excellence to support that “salesforce.com for marketers” vision - which became the raison d’etre of our blog)
• Our explorer culture created a new and exciting product or experience (our company was distributed in three states; as such, it was important that our virtual teams worked well in creating the vision)

Examples of other “Explorer” brands are Starbucks, Virgin Airlines, Levis, and Patagonia. We felt we were in good company - that there was a good fit between our brand attributes, our vision and our team.

Marqui, Meet Rachel

Step two was to profile our prospect for the entire organization to understand. From a sales, marketing, engineering and support perspective, it was imperative to have a deep understanding of Rachel.

According to the AMA in 2004, Rachel:

• Was 42 years old
• Was a marketing communications director leading outbound marketing efforts for a mid-size organization
• Made approximately $80K
• Worked 50+ hours a week
• Was likely divorced, with no children
• Led a team of 4-6 marketing specialists

She enjoyed running a marketing organization, but was coming under increasing pressure. Rachel had lost her control of her marketing domain as it moved increasingly online. Dependent on her IT team (if she was lucky enough to have one) or outside resources, she longed for the simpler days when she felt the freedom of control of her own destiny.

Marqui, Meet your New Heart, Soul and Face to the World:

Marqui’s brand promise - quite literally - was to restore Rachel’s ability (that freedom and control) to manage her own domain. Once we had a good understanding of Rachel’s persona and her challenges, our brand needed to support our promise. We looked back to a simple time - the 50’s and early 60’s - when technology held the promise to simplify our lives.

First we came up with “Jack” - the delightfully simple logo that elegantly payed off the Marqui name. Jack was certainly capable of leading people to new places, in a friendly, safe manner, illuminating the way. He fit our explorer brand. Armed with Jack and our explorer brand attributes, Rachel’s needs for freedom and (at the same time) control, we were able to be very specific in guiding our creative agency in giving Marqui a heart, soul and face to the world.

Here are some of the files associated with the updated Marqui brand:

The 50’s road trip theme was complete with stamps (for our paper communications with prospects), postcards for direct marketing and brand awareness, and the tiny touches that made our brand completely engaging. We created little artifacts to play with our brand - we had a dog, “Buster;” a vintage airplane (which later found its place in Aviation Gin); and “Jimmy,” complete with his Ray Gun - to use in illustrating our brand’s promise, the ease of our products and the company itself.

Our prospects adored the brand. At trade shows, on the speaking tour and online, we were constantly complimented for our vibrant, fun, engaging brand. “You don’t look like other software companies…” The brand itself pulled people in.

This is probably the brand work that’s made me the most proud in my career in marketing. We had a ton of fun with the process, and - although it feels today as if the brand manifested itself exactly as it was meant to be - we did go through a deliberate internal reflection and a creative process that illuminated our final choices.

The brand lived on until the company, after two years of trying to hit the US market, retrenched in 2006 and remains a regional software company today.