MackCollier.com

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September’s Blogging Recap: The Relaunch

So let’s talk about what happened here in September. I committed to relaunching this blog and boosting my writing schedule for two main reasons:

1 – More of us are going to be spending more time at home, and more time with our desktops and laptops. Covid is changing work schedules, leading to many of working remotely, and for some workers, those changes will be permanent. More time spent with laptops and desktops means, in theory, that we will be reading blogs more.

2 – Distrust in social media sites like Facebook and Twitter continues to grow. I honestly think that both sites will reach a point over the next few years where users will leave in droves. Additionally, both sites could be facing government regulation in the near future as they seem to be shifting from platforms to publishers. I think the migration from these sites will lead to an increase in blog readership.

So around August or so I decided to double-down on blogging. Looking back, I honestly should have made this move in May or so, but live and learn. I discussed this on August 31st when the blog relaunched, but I came back with a commitment to have 6 new posts a week. My only goal for September was to get 6 new posts a week up. A pretty ambitious goal when you consider that I had only published 12 new posts in the first 8 months of the year.

I met that goal, so for October the goal is to keep writing at the same pace, but also focus more on adding visual elements to the posts and work on implementing good SEO practices. Really for September I just wanted to prove to myself that I could meet the new posting schedule. I did, so let’s improve more for October.

Here’s what happened in September:

Traffic up 21.49% from August! I’m very happy with those results. As I continue to post more, search traffic in particular will grow very quickly and continue to push overall traffic levels up.

I started this blog in June of 2009. The traffic for the blog grew consistently every year. So much so that by early 2015, I was getting almost 1,700 visitors a day. The blog was starting to really take off. I decided in February of 2015 that I needed to get serious about the blog and take it to the next level. I made two changes; The first is I switched from ‘shared’ hosting to a dedicated WordPress host. This was a great move as it immediately cut the loading time for the site in half.

But the second change I made ended up having disastrous affects. Around this time, I read an article on an SEO site that said if you wanted to increase search rankings for your site, you should drop the www from your blog. For instance, instead of wwwDOTmackcollierDOTcom, have the site’s URL be mackcollierDOTcom. So I made this change, I switched it to mackcollierDOTcom. But what this article failed to mention was that this change should only be made if your site is NEW. Because making the switch screws with the SEO rankings you have already established otherwise.

Which, unfortunately, is what happened with this blog. My traffic for January of 2015 was 48,385. I made the changes in the middle of February of 2015, and my traffic started dropping immediately. Almost all of the drop was attributed to a decline in search traffic.  By April of 2015, traffic was already down to 36.481, and it continued dropping every month. for 5 years. By August of this year, I was averaging around 50 visitors a day, where I was getting around 1,700 a day in early 2015 before I made the changes. Needless to say, it was incredibly disheartening to see my traffic going down for 5 years, despite everything I was doing, and not know why.

So I really see this as my blogging ‘rebirth’, a chance to rebuild the blog to where it once was, and even surpass it. Yes, starting over sucks, but I’ve learned so much about writing and blogging that I didn’t know in 2009. So the process will be much faster.

I appreciate everyone who has read, subscribed and left me nice emails and comments on social media.

So the goals for October are:

1 – More emphasis on visual elements. I’ll have to dig back into Thrive Architect and see what I can come up with.

2 – More emphasis on good SEO practices.  This will mostly be on the backend and really won’t impact the actual content here.

3 – Traffic goal of 3,000 visitors. That would give me an average of roughly 100 visitors a day after averaging almost 80 a day in September.

 

Onward! Thanks again for reading and letting me know what you think, it is greatly appreciated!

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Marketing and Movies: Smokey and the Bandit

1977 was a great year for blockbuster movies. Saturday Night Fever, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and of course, Star Wars: A New Hope. Another top-grossing movie in 1977 was Smokey and the Bandit. Smokey and the Bandit had an all-star cast; Burt Reynolds, Sally Fields and Jackie Gleason. The movie centers on a Coors Beer run that two buddies (Bandit and Cledus) have to make in 28 hours, from Georgia to Texas, and back to Georgia.

But the scene-stealer in this movie wasn’t an actor, it was an automobile. The logistics of making a round trip from Georgia to Texas in 28 hours meant that Cledus (who would drive the truck hauling the beer) would have to drive faster than the speed limit to make the trip on time. Obviously, that meant Cledus needed a way to evade the police.

That’s where the Bandit came in. The Bandit drove a 1977 Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am. The Bandit would draw all the attention from the police to him, clearing a path for Cledus to drive unencumbered. Bandit is the perfect driver for a flashy and fast sports car designed to draw attention. In one scene Sally Fields’ character Carrie asks Bandit what he does:

Bandit: “I go from place to place, and do what I do best.’

Carrie: “What’s that?”

Bandit: “Show off.”

As you can see, Bandit’s Firebird Trans-Am was one of the stars of the movie. And its presence had an immediate impact on Trans-Am sales. “We could have our whole front line full with Trans Ams. It was a big car for us,” said Art Douglas, 61, of Jim  Douglas Auto Sales on Baldwin Avenue in Pontiac, which his father founded in 1975. “The movie made the car popular, really more with non-car people. I mean, that car was hot.” “When it all comes together with the actor, the car, the script and that moment in pop culture? For an automaker that’s better than advertising,” McElroy said. “When you hit that magic, and a car becomes a star, wow, it can really help sales.”

Most product placements, whether its in a movie or television series, really aren’t that effective. Typically, the placement is for a product that’s in the background and really contributes nothing to the plot or story of the film or show. Smokey and the Bandit was completely different in that the Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am MADE the story. Without that automobile, there’s no plot. The Trans-Am made the story, and made it better, and made it cooler. This is what great product placements always do, the product plays a role, that isn’t forced, and makes the scene or larger show better.

Yesterday when I talked about the three types of content you could create for your customers, one of those types was ‘inspirational’ content. If you think about it, the Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am was inspirational content. It showed us how cool it could be to own and drive a car like that. Note the above quote from the gentleman that owned a car lot when the movie came out, he said that the Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am was a big hit with ‘non-car people’. In other words, people that didn’t really care about cars, cared about THAT car, because it had the ‘cool’ factor. Many of Apple’s products have that ‘cool’ factor due to impressive design and slick marketing.

So if your company wants to use product placements, or even if you want to sponsor digital content, think about how the placement or sponsorship can MAKE THE USER EXPERIENCE BETTER. This should always be the goal for your product placement or sponsorship. If it gets in the way, it gets ignored. But if it makes the scene, then it becomes ‘cool’ and desirable.

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Three Ways to Create Content That Connects With Customers

create contentIt’s really tough to create content that consistently connects with customers. Part of the problem is simply staffing; Most companies hand off content creation to mid or lower-level digital people. If they do a good job, they often get promoted into more marketing-oriented roles. So there can be a constant talent-drain happening for your content team.

One way to avoid this is to have good processes in place. Part of this is having a system for the type of content that you should be creating to connect with your customers. Today I wanted to talk about three different roles that your content can play. This will help you think about how you can quickly and easily create content that has value for your customers.

 

Be a teacher. Think about how you use search engines. If you have a problem, you’re searching for a solution, right?  Here’s some of the basic search terms you’ve probably used before:

“What’s the best way to…”

“How do I get rid of…”

“Which (product) is best to solve (problem)?”

 

Often, when we use search engines, we are really searching for the answer to a question or the solution to a problem we are having. So apply this to your customers; What problems do they have, and what solutions do they need?  Once you have those answers, then create content that answers those questions and provides those solutions! This not creates valuable content for your customers, but it also creates the content that search engines will serve up when other customers when they search for those same terms!

So how do you figure out what questions your customers have?  First, look at any feedback you are already getting from your customers. This could be emails feedback on social media channels, or even letters. Next, talk to your customer support team, and see what are the common issues that customers are having. Is there a certain product feature that many customers are having trouble understanding how to use? Is there a common complaint that customers have, and maybe you can create a blog post that helps explain the issue to customers?

Finally, look at product reviews, not just for your products, but also your competitors. For instance, if you see that reviews for a competitors product are constantly complaining that the competing product does not have a certain feature that your product does, then you should point that out in your content. But all of these types of customer feedback give you very valuable insights into how you can create content that helps your customers and which also helps address issues they are facing.

 

Be a storyteller. I am a sucker for case studies and ‘real-world’ examples. I love hearing how people ‘just like me’ are using a product or service and hearing how its helping them. This helps me understand how I could use the product or service as well, and its honestly a more effective way of selling and promotion than simply coming directly from the brand. The reality is, we tend to trust other customers more than we do brands. It is the central lesson behind my book Think Like a Rock Star.

So you can create content that showcases how your customers are using your products or services. This will help other potential customers better understand how your products work, and can also address concerns they have about your products. In fact, you can take customer feedback you get from creating content that teaches in the above example, and use it here. Let’s say you write a ‘teaching’ post that shows customers how to use your product in a particular way.  Sarah leaves a comment on your Facebook page saying thank you, and says that your post solved a problem she was having and now she loves using your product. You could contact Sarah and learn more about how she uses your product, then use her experiences as a ‘case study’ post to show other customers how your product helped Sarah.

 

Be inspirational. So we’ve talked about creating content that teaches your customers how to better use your products, and content that showcases how current customers are benefiting from your products. These are great ways to create engaging content for your customers, but these methods are focused on what’s happening today. What if you wanted to create content that shows customers how their lives or daily routines could be changed for the better, by purchasing your product? What if you could create content that could paint a picture for customers of how their lives would be better, if they owned your product?

Here’s an example of how this could work. I have always been a car owner. I hate trucks and SUVs, simply because when I drive one, it feels like I’m driving a slow tank and I’m gonna run over everything and hit every car. I love driving cars because it feels like I’m more in control, like I have better vision and they are just more fun for me to drive.

So I’m not in the market today for an SUV. However, what if you could paint a picture for me of what my life could look like if I owned your SUV? Let’s say you have an SUV you want to tell me about.  “Sorry, I don’t like SUVs, I drive cars.”

“Hear me out!” you say.  “This SUV is different”.

You then tell me about how your SUV has a dedicated wifi router in place, so it is in effect a ‘rolling hotspot’.  The SUV gives the driver a constant, high-speed internet connection. The center console comes with a laptop docking station and multiple USB ports. The back row of seats feature enough room to comfortably sit and the back of the driver and passenger seats have monitors for taking video calls. Finally, the roof has an attachment that allows you to install a green screen so you can create and record videos, with the included interior cameras. Basically, this SUV is a ‘mobile office’, that would allow me to do any of my normal business and content creation functions, no matter where I am.

Would that make me interested in your SUV?  Well…it wouldn’t hurt! By showing me how your SUV could help me perform most or all of my daily business functions even while on the road, that adds a great deal of value for me. If you can paint a picture for the customer via your content of how the customer’s life can be changed for the better TOMORROW by owning your product today, that gets the customer’s attention.

 

So that’s three ways you can create content that will connect with your customers.

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Users Don’t Trust Facebook, How Covid Has Changed Shopper Behavior

Welcome to the start of another great week! Thanks for reading, on Wednesday my Movies and Marketing post will feature the movie with the greatest product placement of all-time (what do you think it is?), and on Thursday I’ll do a special post recapping what happened here in the month of September after relaunching my blog. Happy to see the stats are looking pretty good, and I’ll dive into that more on Thursday.

Now, let’s jump into the news!

 

eMarketer had some interesting research into which social platforms are the most and least trusted. eMarketer states that it is measuring trust as “the confidence users have in a social media platform to protect their information and provide a safe environment for them to create and engage with content.”

LinkedIn and Pinterest ranked at the top in first and second, while Twitter and Facebook ranked at the bottom in seventh and ninth. I think there’s two issues at play here, the first is privacy concerns and how comfortable users are in letting these platforms handle their data. But that’s not the only area, because LinkedIn ranked first, even though the platform has had security breaches in the past. So the trust factor also incorporates the actual environment and user experience on these platforms. This is what really hurts Twitter and Facebook, in my opinion.  These sites simply have toxic environments. Users argue and insult each other constantly, and neither site has developed an effective or consistent way to monitor and police content. LinkedIn has much user interaction, but its far more professional and business-oriented in nature. Pinterest is focused heavily on the content (pins and boards), not the user interaction.

 

I’ve been a big fan of the work BazaarVoice does as well as its timely research studies ever since I spoke at its headquarters a few years ago and got to spend some time with the management team. I look forward to their research studies and they have a new one on how shopper behavior is changing as a result of covid. Among the key takeaways, shoppers are becoming more comfortable with the idea of doing more in-store shopping, but want to see stores taking greater measures to ensure safety for shoppers. Honestly, I think this could be the big area where we could see a lasting improvement for the health of shoppers. Let’s be honest, prior to this year, whenever you went to a grocery store, you grab a buggy that’s been touched by who knows how many strangers that same day and who knows what germs are on that buggy. If retailers simply make a better effort to clean their buggies and offer hand sanitizer at store entrances, those changes alone would greatly reduce the change of shoppers catching a cold or other germs while shopping. Very simple changes can and should be made by stores to help promote a more healthy environment for in-store shopping.

 

And for you Pinterest fans, Search Engine Journal has a rundown of a ton of new features the site has rolled out for creators.  And yes, I do spend some time on Pinterest, have actually spent quite a bit of time there the last few weeks.  It’s fun to poke around and look for inspiration and just focus on the content!

Hope you have a fantastic Monday, see you in 24 hours!

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Toolbox Saturday: Three Ways to Get Extra Value From Twitter

Every year in August, from Alabama to Ohio, there is something called ‘The 500-Mile Yard Sale’. People down a particular highway that runs from Alabama to Ohio will set up sales in their yards. I’ve always wanted to go to this as it sounds fabulous.

If you’ve ever been to yard sales, you know it’s a very hit-or-miss proposition. You can spend all morning going to sales and never finding anything of interest, then suddenly come across a yard sale that has everything you’ve been looking for.

Twitter, in the last few years, has become very similar to a yard sale. There’s still some good stuff, but there’s also a lot of useless crap that you have to wade through to find it.

There’s three ways I find the good stuff on Twitter:

1 – Twitter lists

2 – Twitter chats

3 – Twitter searches

 

1 – Twitter lists are a great way to keep up with a group of people that are organized by some common trait. Maybe they all live in a particular town, maybe they are all reporters covering a particular industry, maybe they are all fans of a particular hobby you enjoy. There’s some common thread that binds them, and makes it valuable for you to see their tweets.  Here’s a list of the Twitter Lists I have now:

As you can see my lists are private, and organized around cities, interests and business. I also like to keep a couple of lists of close friends so I can make sure I see what they are up to.  All designed to filter content on Twitter so that I don’t miss the ‘good stuff’.

2 – Twitter Chats are a wonderful way to connect with people that share a common interest. I still to this day think that Twitter chats are the best way to cultivate and grow a valuable Twitter network. Twitter chats are completely versatile, and cover literally every topic under the sun. If you want to use Twitter chats as a professional growth tool, just join chats around topics related to your industry or space and interact with your peers.  You will not only make professional contacts, you’ll learn a lot and stay up to date on what’s happening in that space or industry. You can also use Twitter chats as a way to connect with people that share a common hobby or interest. This is another way to meet and follow people that share similar interests to yours.  The one downside to Twitter chats is that they are typically only held for one hour at a time, once a week. So if you miss that hour, you miss the chat. For instance, I miss a lot of great chats because they occur from 10am-Noon during the week, when I am typically my busiest.

3 – Twitter searches are a great way to keep up with what’s being said and shared around particular topics or phrases. I use these to keep up on the latest news and articles around topics I am interested in, but I also use it to find new people to follow.

Here’s some searches I have saved:

As you can see, these searches are mostly people sharing links to articles they have written. But I’m searching for marketing terms, if you changed the term to something else you might get more conversational tweets versus promotional. Still, of these three tactics listed, I use this one the least often.

 

So there’s three ways you can extract more value from Twitter; Lists, Chats and Searches! Try these today and see if you don’t find Twitter more useful as a result!

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I Never Saw Jack Horkheimer in Circus World, But I Would Always Remember It If I Did

Toys form so many of my childhood memories, I’m sure they do for you as well. When I was a kid I loved going shopping with my parents because it meant that whether we went to a department or grocery store, I could probably find some toys to ogle over. And if I struck out and we only went to a grocery store, well they would at least have comic books, where I could look at the ads for toys.

But once, maybe twice a year, my family would go shopping in the ‘big city’. And in the big city, was this magical store called Circus World. When I went to a TG&Y or Walmart, at best I might find two or three isles of toys to drool over.  But Circus World was an ENTIRE STORE FULL OF TOYS! It was a magical place for an 8 or 9 year old to be. There was an entire isle of Star Wars toys, then one for Six Million Dollar Man toys. And for some reason they had a section for board games (gross!). Oh and Hot Wheels and and and…well I better calm down!

I will always remember Circus World because it was completely different. It was a unique experience that’s never left me.

Around this same time, I lived in a very rural area with very limited options for television viewing. We are talking like 3-4 channels picked up by antenna. This is waaaaay before the days of satellite or cable TV. One of my few options for television viewing was PBS, which I generally thought was meh, other than Seasame Street and then later The Electric Company.

But around 1980 or so, I discovered this very odd and very quirky (especially for public television) show that came on every night at 10pm. It was a short program, about 5-minutes long called Jack Horkheimer, Star Hustler! Every week, Jack would tell us what was going to be happening when we looked up at the sky. Which stars would be brightest, which planets would be visible, everything.  I have always loved astronomy so the subject naturally interested even 9 year-old Mack, but the format was so different from the rest of the programming on PBS. It was short, just a few minutes so I could always stay interested. And it was fun, even ‘hip’. Well here, see for yourself:

I could not for the life of me tell you what shows came on before or after Star Hustler, but I will always remember ‘Greetings! Greetings, fellow star gazers!’

The point here is, we tend to remember things that are unique and unexpected. Until I discovered Circus World, my 9 year-old self had no idea that it was possible to have an entire store that ONLY sold toys! I thought toys were the 2-3 isles in TG&Y between sporting goods and housewares. My 9 year-old self thought programming on PBS was pretty boring, until I found Jack Horkheimer, Star Hustler on late one night when I was probably staying up past my bedtime.

When marketing your products and services, think about how you can provide a unique experience for your customers that surprises and delights them. And if you do it right, you may even make a lifetime memory for your customers, which will mean a lifetime of word of mouth about your brand.

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What is a Customer Feedback Loop and Why Should it Be a Part of Your Brand Ambassador Program?

Customer feedback comes in many forms:

  • Surveys the company sends out
  • Calls to customer service
  • Social media responses or complaints from the customer
  • In-person feedback from customers in retail locations

Often, this feedback is used to solve a current issue the customer is having. But what if a customer’s feedback isn’t focused on an immediate need? What if the feedback is an overall criticism or appreciation for the brand? What if the feedback is focused on an ongoing situation the customer encounters when dealing with the brand, either good or bad?

Many brands focus on the ‘customer feedback’ portion of a customer feedback loop, but forget the ‘loop’ part. The idea is to acquire feedback from the customer, then consider that feedback and either act on it, or not. But either way, the customer should also receive feedback from the brand as to next steps.

So when it comes to facilitating a customer feedback loop. the two most important considerations are the most effective ways to collect feedback from the customer, then the most effective way to relay feedback from the brand, back to the customer. Thus, facilitating the ‘loop’ portion of a customer feedback loop.

Feedback solicited from and given to another customer is typically more valuable than customer feedback solicited from and given to the brand. The reason why is because customers trust other customers more than the average brand.

How Do You Integrate a Customer Feedback Loop Into Your Brand Ambassador Program?

Too many brand ambassador programs simply position its ambassadors as a new promotional channel. So before you think about integrating a customer feedback loop into your brand ambassador program, you need to shift your focus into all the different ways that your ambassadors can help your brand

  • As a promotional channel
  • As a customer service channel
  • As a customer feedback loop
  • As a way to educate other customers about and defend the brand

To only think of ambassadors as megaphones for your brand is incredibly short-sighted and honestly unfair to the talents that your ambassadors possess. So your brand needs to think about the value that can be created by your ambassadors if you empower them to solicit and collect feedback from current and potential customers. Think of it as free marketing research that your ambassadors can conduct on behalf of your brand.

So how could this work for your company? Let’s use a simple example. Let’s say your brand launches a brand ambassador program, and creates a smartphone app just for its ambassadors. This app would be a tool to empower ambassadors when they connect with other customers. It would include things product information and reviews in case the ambassador encounters a potential customer who is considering a purchase and needs more information. It could also include functionality that lets the ambassadors give detailed feedback not only on interactions with the brand online and offline, but also, feedback on customer interactions. Ambassadors could file reports on interactions they have with customers, offering suggestions on how the brand should respond, etc. The brand could then notify the ambassador that they received and processed their report.  It could even ‘escalate’ the report to contact the ambassador directly.

The process could look like this:

1 – Ambassador engages a customer either online or offline

2 – Ambassador records feedback from the customer

3 – Ambassador shares customer feedback with the brand

4 – Brand acts on the customer feedback and communicates steps taken to ambassadors

 

That’s it. And the great part is, this is new customer feedback that the brand otherwise would not have access to. This feedback can be incorporated into existing business processes to increase sales and reduce costs. So start thinking about how your ambassadors can perform additional roles for your brand past that of simply being a direct sales channel.

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Marketing and Movies: Interstellar

I’ve never been a big fan of science fiction movies. The simple reason why is, I can’t relate to most of them. Most science fiction movies have plots and special effects that are completely untethered to reality. I need to be able to look at what’s happening and think “Ok, I can see how that’s possible”. When I was a kid, I wasn’t a fan of Superman or Hulk, I loved Batman. Because I didn’t think it was possible to be a superpowered alien from another planet or a radioactive giant, but I could totally see being an obsessed millionaire who was a hand to hand combat expert, and who could buy any crime-fighting toy he needed. I could RELATE to being Batman, I couldn’t relate to being Superman or Hulk.

Interstellar is the second Christopher Nolan movie I’ve discussed in the Marketing and Movies series. One of the many things that Nolan excels at is taking complex and potentially confusing concepts and making them relatable and easier for the viewer to understand. A couple week ago, I talked about how Nolan helped the viewer understand what life was like for Leonard Shelby in dealing with short term memory loss by altering the structure of the movie Memento.

With interstellar, Nolan, for the most part, does a great job of taking potentially abstract ideas and making them easier for the viewer to understand by tying them to something that makes sense for us. There’s a couple of instances where Nolan does this. The general plot of the movie is that blight, a plant disease, is killing the world’s crops. The blight will wipe out one form of crop, so farmers will rotate and start growing a new crop, but eventually the blight adjusts and destroys that crop as well. The end result is that miles and miles of farmland is reduced to dirt. This results in frequent and massive dust storms that plague the farmers and their families. These types of dust storms were actually common in the early 20th century in the heartland.  Early on in the movie, we are shown interviews with people who had survived these storms. It turns out, these were actual interviews from people who survived the dust storms during the 1930s. Nolan used clips from Ken Burns’ 2012 series The Dust Bowl which were actual interviews from people who had lived through these storms. So Nolan is already giving us a way to relate to what these farmers are going through, even though we’ve never experienced similar dust storms.

Later in the film, a wordhole is discovered that NASA has previously sent two crafts into searching for potentially habitable planets if it becomes necessary to leave Earth. NASA sends a second craft into the wormhole to visit two planets which show promise. This is another spot in the film where Nolan could have lost me, if the two planets that the crew visited seemed completely unrelatable. Instead, Nolan made both planets similar enough to Earth that the viewer can relate to them. Both environments contain enough Earth-like elements that the viewer can look at Nolan’s vision of what these planets are like and think “Ok, that makes sense to me”.

There’s a key lesson in this for marketers. When you are attempting to promote your products or services to customers, you need to help them understand how what you sell will improve their lives. A very easy way to do this is to talk about your product or service in terms of what those customers are doing now, and how your product or service will help improve their efforts. For instance, let’s say your company sells a ‘copper infused’ cooking pan. Your pan costs 10% more than the average cooking pan on the market. If you sell your pan as simply being ‘the future of cooking’, customers will respond with ‘what does that even mean?’ And asking them to pay an additional 10% more for features they don’t see the value in, kills the product.

But if you promote how the cooking pan will improve the life of your customer, that helps them see the value. If you promote that the cooking pan reduces cooking time by 23%, thanks to being copper-infused, and is 15% easier to clean than the average cooking pan, that’s real benefits that customers can see the value in. That helps justify the 10% higher price tag. Promote these features to time-strapped parents trying to get their kids off to school in the morning AND with a hot breakfast, and you’ve got a winning combination.

The key is to understand your customers, and help them understand how your product benefits them and improves their lives. This is especially important when you are dealing with potential customers who aren’t familiar with your brand. You need to speak clearly to customers and help them understand the value of your product or service. And speak in terms and concepts that the customer can relate to.

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Diversity Just For the Sake of Diversity Doesn’t Help Anyone

Whether its the speaking lineup at a marketing conference, or the executive team at a company, you’ve seen instances were there has been calls for more diversity in that group. “We need more…” people based on their race or gender or some other criteria.

What is often missing from the diversity discussion is making sure that the people selected are qualified to perform the tasks.  Too often, simple choosing someone based on a pre-determined criteria is more important than choosing the most qualified person.

This approach does a dis-service to everyone. It rewards people for meeting a certain criteria, and punishes talented people.

Picking the most talented people to perform the job should always be the first consideration. Talent is more important than hitting a desired ‘diversity’ goal every single time.

The goal shouldn’t be to pick a more diverse team, the goal should be to pick the BEST team.  Now if you can pick the best team and also address diversity, then fine.  And to be fair, in certain cases having a more diverse team can actually be a better team by default.

For instance, let’s say a conference has decided that it wanted an equal split of 5 male speakers and 5 female speakers. What happens if all of the male speakers are qualified to speak, but only 2 of the female speakers are?  That means 30% of the speaker lineup will be subpar which means the quality of the conference will suffer.  And it could just as easily be the opposite; maybe only 2 of the male speakers were qualified to speak at the event but the organizers pushed for 5 male speakers, so they signed 3 more who were unqualified.

This is why you push for talent before diversity.  Now some will argue that having a more diverse team IS having the best team. In some scenarios this is absolutely true.  But often, simply making a team more diverse (based on whatever criteria you think that means) doesn’t make it better.

If you can make your team more diverse without sacrificing talent, then go for it. But you should never place diversity above talent. Hire for talent first, diversity second.

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: TikTok Finds a Home, Visual Branding, Men Using Pinterest

Happy Monday, y’all! Hope you are ready to have an amazing week! I want to thank everyone for reading and subscribing, since relaunching on August 31st, traffic is up 17% versus the previous 3-week period. Thank you! I’ll do a comprehensive update probably next week on what happened in the first month of the relaunch.

 

TikTok users may be able to keep the app on their phones a while longer.  President Trump has given his blessing to a deal between TikTok, Oracle and WalMart that would make TikTok a US-based company. However, there’s still some questions over how much, if any, ownership ByteDance would retain in TikTok. So this story may not be over…

 

Visual branding and storytelling is something that most of us overlook until we see an example of a company or organization doing it really well, then we see the potential. I love how the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens are infusing a ‘Poe-vibe’ into its graphics and visual images. It gives the Ravens a distinctive look and feel that totally makes sense and creates a lot of interesting possibilities for the design teams. How awesome are these examples?

 

One of the themes I’ve stressed to marketers this year is to think critically about how their customers’ habits will change due to widespread covid-related lockdowns. A perfect example of this is how Pinterest usage among men is spiking. If you think about it, this makes complete sense. Men are spending more time at home, and as a result, they are seeing all the potential ‘weekend home improvement projects’ they could be doing. Sure enough, Pinterest is seeing that men are using its service as inspiration on tackling home improvement projects. This is why it pays to understand your customers and invest the time to learn how you can best help them as their behavior patterns change.

 

That’s your Monday Marketing Minute, hope you enjoyed it and have a great week! See you back here in 24 hours!