Traveling through Texas last week, I noticed my Subaru starting making an unfamiliar noise. This is usually not a good thing for an older car (the Buru is a 2002 model) and eventually it got obtrusive enough for us to seek assistance. We found a Subaru dealer not far from us in Dallas and we drove gingerly over to Sewell Subaru.

Though it was late on a Saturday the staff was willing to give us a quick diagnosis. Even though the store closed in hour, no one had checked out mentally yet.

Two customer service wins:

1. “Siri call Uber”: Renae and I sat in the lobby awaiting the news about the Subaru’s condition and across the room from us sat an elderly woman with her iPhone. She was using Siri to try and call an Uber. We found this slightly humorous and she continued to try even though Siri said it did not understand. A saleswoman for the dealership walked by and proceeded to slowly explain what Uber was and how it work, even helping the woman install the app and request an Uber. She did this without a second thought.
2. Free check up: The staff was really kind to us as they looked at the Subaru. The took the car to the back and removed the tire and found that the caliper was not working properly. The gave it as big of a bandaid as possible and allowed us to limp back to Tennessee. They did so without a charge and wished us well.

These two stories showed me very quickly that customer service was super important to Sewell Subaru. If we lived in Dallas we would be doing business with them without a second thought. While doing some more research for this blog, I found that the owner of this a few other dealerships has written a book a customer service. I have ordered it and will put up a review after reading it!

Remember: Every customer interaction is a chance to make a stark raving fan!

Sidenote: After posting this picture on Instagram, Subaru asked to use it in future marketing material. So that is pretty cool.

 

 

 

Mission Statements are not something people usually think about. Traditionally mission statements are long complex paragraphs that you read during orientation at a new organization and forget about that afternoon (assuming your orientation was in the morning). This isn’t always the case but it has been in most places I have been apart of. That is, if your business/organization has a mission statement. I have worked with lots of clients for whom a mission statement has not even crossed their minds. I would propose that mission statements are super important for the organization and can become a really solid part of any marketing strategy.

Why are mission statements so important in marketing?

1.  Mission Statements ground the organization. A good mission statement helps you from chasing whatever might pop up along your path. Imagine you are an Italian restaurant but you just got a great offer to sell fajitas from our distributor. Fantastic price with a great margin. Do you think that could confuse your customers? A good mission statement will help you from diluting your brand by adding products and services that don’t fit. Imagine if a marketing company decided to start doing tree trimming. Would that affect your perception of that marketing company?

2. A well written mission statement is memorable. If you have written a mission statement well, you will be able to use it all the time. It will work its way into your speech and into your marketing. But it needs to be short and memorable. Anything more than a sentence is too much. Being memorable helps your employees focus on the work at hands and reminds them why they are there in the first place.

3. It captures the organization in a few words which helps convey it to strangers. Andy Stanley recently said at Leadercast that “people follow clarity”. If you are able to demonstrate to a client or a donor the clarity that you bring to the table, they will be more inclined to do business with you. A good mission statement becomes apart of your elevator pitch and helps all of your team members share the same info about the organization helping you create a more solid brand.

Examples of mission statements:

Three mission statements I have had a heavy hand in helping write and that I think follow the model above:

1. The Star Center. The Star Center’s mission is to help any person with any disability to realize their potential.

2. Our Jackson Home: The mission of Our Jackson Home is to tell the stories of the people and the city that we all love.

3. Adelsberger Marketing: The mission of Adelsberger Marketing is to help businesses communicate with their current and potential customers.

Like a logo and a website, I think mission statements are bedrocks of any good marketing plan. Let’s lead our employees and customers with clarity!

A message I start meetings with most potential clients is: “I can’t help you if you don’t have a good product.” Marketing cannot help a stone roll up hill but can help a stone roll downhill twice as fast.

You should not hire a marketing person if you product and service is terrible. Because it will be a negative return on investment. There maybe some short term gains but it will be causing medium and long term losses. Why is that? Because people talk. Word of mouth can be the best and worst form of advertising.

Word of mouth happens when you have a good product and good service. People like it so they tell others. That endorsement from a friend or family member carries more weight than most any medium of advertising has ever carried. But the exact opposite is true as well.

If someone has a bad experience they will tell their family or friends. Those family and friends are probably going to trust that person’s experience.

If customers are having a bad experience and you add some marketing into the mix, more people will come. More people coming and having a bad experience means more people talking bad about your business. This will end up you costing more than it makes you and it could be enough to close a business.

But if you have a bad product and you know it, you have an opportunity to start fixing it before it is too late. Knowing is half the battle. The other half is caring enough to do something about it. Don’t miss an opportunity to make a stark raving fan!

 

 

Branded Content is becoming more and more common. What is it? Branded Content is something made by a content producer, like a podcast host or a youtube channel, and instead of just being sponsored by a company, the content is shaped around the advertiser’s branding or product.

Branded content is becoming more and more common because traditional advertising is becoming more and more difficult to do. Our society has become more and more immune to traditional ads. Ads in a newspaper or on radio are generally clearly marked and easy to ignore. Even banner ads and youtube pre roll can be ignored fairly easily or even blocked with some of the most common ad blocked software available online.

Branded content is great for two reasons.

1. It allows advertisers to get their message out in a way that fans of the content produced will consume. Branded content subtlety puts in product placement in a way that is almost an endorsement by these personalities. It directly targets the audience that a produce already has and is engaging with. This is a great value for a brand.

2. It pays content producers! As ad revenue continues to dwindle things like branded content will be one of the ways content producers can pay the bills. Normally I would put a rant in here about ad blockers but I will just leave it to this: It costs money to produce content. Using ad blockers is a way of stealing the content. Because this system is not working it forces content producers to create more content that is branded. An alternative to this are platforms like Patreon.

 

Branded content is bad for two reasons:

1. It is hard to do well. Working a brand into content without seeming forced or salesy is hard. It is best for brands to find content producers who align closely with your company to keep it from being forced.

 

2. It is a little sneaky. Sometimes branded content tries to fly in under the radar and this may seem dishonest to some consumers. This is especially ethically sketchy if it comes from a journalism organization. In the case of entertainment producers, I think this public sentiment will change as our society becomes more use to branded content and product placement.

That all being said, recently I saw one of the better examples of branded content in a spot by Dude Perfect. Bass Pro unleashed them on their new flagship store at the Memphis Pyramid. This was a good partnership for the brand and a good video by Dude Perfect, check it out:

The internet can be a dark place. Not because the internet is inherently dark, but because it is populated by humans who can hide behind anonymity.

This most recently reared its ugly head when Microsoft launched a twitter account managed by an artificial intelligence platform. Tay was a test by Microsoft to find something to interact with millennials and generation z. (Read more about Tay here.) Artificial intelligence learns by observing and interacting with the community it is put in.

When this was released, the internet went to work quickly. Within 24 hours of launching, Microsoft had to shut down the twitter account. The internet had taught Tay to be racist and sexist. With tweets like this:

Microsoft brought Tay back online a few days later and this was the result:

But at least they could turn off the account. In England they recently ran an online vote to name a new 300 milion dollar research vessel. The winning name: Boaty Mc Boat Face.

 

Oh internet, this is why we can’t have nice things.

New Facebook Page Layout on some mobile platforms:

Facebook has once again changed the way its Facebook Pages display on mobile for iPhone 5s. Although the popularity of the iPhone 6 is huge, the 5 models still maintain about 33% of the market. Here is kind of how they used to look and still look on the Pages Mobile App:

The cover photo is a crucial piece to any Facebook page’s visual identity. It has always been a struggle to get a cover photo that looks good on mobile and looks good desktop. This latest change makes it harder adding a third option for displaying.

And here is how they look on the Facebook App for iPhone5’s :

 

Before the change my tag line fit nicely into the the space provided but now it looks to small to fit properly. This new look leaves a lot of dead space around the tag line.

 

But the plot thickened this morning when I looked at a colleagues phone. Besides him not having liked my facebook page, the iPhone 6 displayed differently. It looks more like the traditional view we are used to. Here is a screenshot from an iPhone 6:

 

It still looks the same. It might be time to experiment to find a happy medium between the two models. It is also a little odd to me that Facebook would have this display differently based on the model. A reader, Jonathan Spotts, owner of Spotts Professional Computers sent in a screen shot from his Nexus 6 and it displays like the iPhone 5s.

 

 

There are a few people in my co-working space that are huge Gary Vaynerchuk fans. I have never been one. I did follow him on Twitter because supposedly his social media knowledge was top notch. So early one morning, like 5:20 in the morning, right before I got on the treadmill, I saw a tweet from Gary about looking for reviewers for his new book. I like free stuff and learning, so I figured why not make a pitch for a copy of AskGaryVee:

I openly stated that I was not a huge fan and Gary thought that angle would work well. A few weeks later I received the proof copy in the mail.

Here is the setup for the book: Gary hosts a video show where he takes questions from the online community and answers them on video called AskGaryVee. He does these videos regularly, at the time of writing they are up to episode 191. This book is a summary of some of the best questions and answers of the show. I have never seen one of these shows so all the content was new to me. If you are an avid follower there maybe some repeat content for you.

Gary covers a lot of ground in this book, everything from family to work to the New York Jets. Mean Green aside, the content in the book is great. This may end up being one of the more important books for modern marketers to read. It joins Seth Godin’s Permission Marketing on my list of seminal books for marketers to read to be prepared to do business today.

The Good in AskGaryVee:

This book is easy to read. It is cut into short sections grouped by a larger theme. You can read two questions and answers and have a good stopping point.
Contains great up-to-date information. All the content in this book is fresh for Spring 2016. This makes is valuable as the social media landscape is always updating.
It gives a look inside Gary Vee without being overpowering. Gary Vee has a strong personality on camera. This can turn some off. I had this same experience with Dave Ramsey. When I learned more about Dave’s story and heard his heart, I was able to listen to him with a different ear. This book has given me a bigger framework in which to read and enjoy Gary Vee.
It made me a better marketer. Hearing Gary breakdown some of his techniques and thought processes helped me get even better at my job.

The Bad in AskGaryVee:

Some extra info: There are a few sections that are fun to read if you are a fan, but are not very valuable if you are not a fan. Keep in mind, the extra stuff is like 2% of the book, but just a heads up.
Up-to-Date Info will be out-of-date soon. This is the nature of the beast, but the up-to-date info will also be yesterday’s news in no time. But if you are trying to make your living in social media you are always have to keep up with the latest.
If you are a fan some recycle: If you are already following Gary Vee and watching his videos, there maybe some repeat material. Not saying you shouldn’t hear it again, but just a warning.

BOTTOM LINE:

If you are a marketer and want to be good at your job, this a great book to read. In the beginning of January I was not a fan, but now I am a Gary Vee fan. Check out this book!