3. Marketing

Challenge

Your marketing is not effective enough; you just cannot get yourself heard.

—

Three Fundamentals to Consider

To improve the effectiveness of your marketing and branding message, consider:

1. Be consistent with a marketing message that is short, simple and focused on your specific customers’ wants and needs.
2. Tell stories and engage in a conversation with your customers (especially using Social Media).
3. Deliver on and live your marketing and branding message.

—

Relevant Blog Posts to Read

• How to Make Yourself Heard Above the Noise
• Better B2B Branding

• Social Media and B2B – Let’s Get Started
• Social Media and B2B – Blogging
• Social Media and B2B – LinkedIn
• Social Media and B2B – Twitter
• Social Media and B2B – Facebook and Conclusions

—

Pertinent Book Summary to Review

• Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die (Chip and Dan Heath)
• Tuned In: Uncover the Extraordinary Opportunities That Lead to Business Breakthroughs (Craig Stull, Phil Myers & David Meerman Scott)

—

Related Quotes to Think About

• The biggest challenge “was just getting people to pay attention. It’s seventy percent of the battle.” Dan Gilbert (Founder of Quicken Loans)

• “If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.” Henry Ford (Founder of Ford Motor Company)

• “Humans are not ideally set up to understand logic; they are ideally set up to understand stories.” Roger Schank (American cognitive psychologist)

• “A lot of marketing is listening to the customer and then repeating it back to them.” Steve Harrison (Publicity and marketing expert)

• “You are always on display.  When it comes to your brand, there is no such thing as a transaction that doesn’t count.”  David D’Alessandro (CEO of John Hancock)