The Unexpected

One of my absolute favorite books that I've read in the past year is Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip and Dan Heath. It is fascinating and thought-provoking, with many great examples to illustrate the authors' points.

They offer six principles to make an idea memorable:

• simplicity
• unexpectedness
• concreteness
• credibility
• emotions
• stories

I came across a fun example of principle #2 (unexpectness) on a recent trip to visit my sister in Orlando. At several intersections near her house, signs were posted warning that motorists would be fined $183.50 if caught running a red light. I commented on how odd that amount is and my sister (she's so smart!) responded it's to make people talk about it. Duh! I'd read Made to Stick--why didn't I think of that? Anyways, on a later trip in the car, my husband (who wasn't there for the initial conversation) made the same comment I had. Almost a month later, I still remember the exact amount of the fine. What a simple way to make an impression!

If you haven't read Made to Stick, I highly recommend it. I had purchased the audiobook version through iTunes, and I loved it so much that I'm seriously considering buying the hardcover version for reference. If you're looking for more wisdom from the authors, you can check out their blog. They don't update it as often as I wish they would, but there's some great info there!

Great Tips for Bullet Point Copywriting

Another short one--I just read a great post on MarketingSherpa about effective bullet point copywriting.

I highly encourage you to give it a read. Even if you aren't involved in writing marketing copy, the tips could help with writing more effective business communications.

The two big takeaways:

• Readers tend to look at the first, second, and last bullets (in that order), so you should rank your points to fall into that pattern.
• You should put your most important words at the beginning of the bullet, and each starting word should look physically different from the others.

Hmm. Hopefully you read those bullets!

Fascinating Brand Image

I just have to get this down before I forget it, because this is such a powerful image. I was listening to a podcast this morning (The Age of Conversation episode from The Engaging Brand) and host Anna Farmery recounted an absolutely fantastic--though brief--story from a speech by Michael Eisner. She couldn't remember the specific artist, but Eisner showed a painting to the audience (I imagine it was probably a pointillist painting). Eisner said that a brand is like this painting--when you stand back, you see a whole image (the brand). But that image is made up of myriad little points. Those points correspond to the various interactions a customer has with your brand--contact with customer service, perhaps marketing pieces they receive, the logo or packaging you use.

It's a simple thought, but so illustrative that I find it fascinating.

From the "Are you kidding me?" File

So, I peeked in my work in box this afternoon and found the following well-meaning but *poorly* executed email. (All identifying information about the company has been blacked out to protect the clueless.)

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? Why on earth would I see them as an authority when they can't even send out a decent personalized email? ("Dear NULL" and "[not provided]" don't make me feel warm and fuzzy.) Please, please, please--if you are going to send out a personalized email, make sure you have your list and email set up to use generic information if you don't have specifics available.

P.S. You'll notice on the image that I forwarded this message within 10 minutes of receiving it. That's from when I forwarded it to our Web Marketing Manager so she could have a laugh, too. I'm sure that's not the kind of word-of-mouth this company is looking for.

A Great Microsite

I recently discovered NFL Network's campaign for Joe's Diner. Very nicely done! I LOVE the commercials that they've aired on TV (and not just because they feature a character named Matt, who reminds me of my husband--another Pats fan from the Worcester area, also named Matt!). The site allows you to view the entire campaign, up through the most recent one that they've aired, plus has a fake video bio of the diner's owner (played by Joe Montana). There's even a link to Matt's Patriots blog, to encourage comments from the community.

Overall, I think it's very cool and nicely done, but I do have a few suggestions for the NFL Network to improve the site.

• The commercials are hilarious. They're so funny that I want to share them with my friends. Why not include a link at the end of the video to make that easy for me? You do it at the end of the video bio for Joe, so I know you know how! You have great content--encourage viral behavior!
• What's up with the fact that the posts on Matt's blog all have the same date? After taking so much care with everything else, that just seems sloppy.
• I actually didn't notice the blog the first time I cruised through the site. I only noticed it after I decided I wanted to post here about the microsite and went back to take another look. Again, you've taken so much care with everything, but you should make it easier for visitors to find aspects of the site that encourage them to hang around and stay engaged!

Microsoft is SO helpful

This is slightly gratuitous, but I had to post about something that seems like overzealous marketing, or perhaps just marketing gone awry. The other day, a Windows update notification came up.

Am I the only one who finds the wording here to be ludicrous? Microsoft is so thoughtful to provide this "tool" to help me know whether my copy of Windows is genuine, and to offer their assistance with finding another copy if mine isn't genuine.

I fully support Microsoft's right to protect themselves from software piracy, but why cloak it in this false helpfulness? Is it any wonder that marketers sometimes earn such disdain for their spin tactics? It seems like sometimes you'll earn more trust if you just call it what it is. Why not just say it's a check to ensure the copy is genuine, but include some kind of benefit for the customer? I'm assuming there is some benefit for the customer, otherwise why include "advantage" in the name??

Facebook Redux

Aha! Finally the pieces are starting to come together regarding how Facebook can be used for marketing purposes. The possibilities with advertising via Facebook's Social Ads are fairly obvious (though intriguing due to the ability to highly target those ads based on demographics, interests, etc.).

The Wall Street Journal ran an article this week with examples of how small businesses have used their profiles and group pages to build awareness and share products and services. Now Facebook has made another type of page available--company pages. I find this idea fascinating, and the wheels are already turning in my head to see how this could be used on a bigger scale. I think that the biggest challenge will be in how to speak to and connect with people ("fans" on Facebook) in an engaging and personalized way, rather than as a company to a group of customers and prospects (i.e., how to leverage the conversational aspects that are so strong and almost inherent in social media space, rather than falling back on the one-sided relationship found in traditional marketing).