PRACTICE MARKETING blog

Direct marketing is traditionally through regular mail, phone, and even fax. E-mail is also a direct marketing channel. More and more, direct marketers are integrating the on-line direct marketing channels.

Last Thursday, I was invited to address the Direct Marketing Association of Long Island (DMALI) on the direct marketing opportunities available through Web 2.0, blogs, podcasts, on-line communities, etc.

It was a 1-hour seminar with me and Abe Mezrich of Didit.com.

The full seminar will be on Google Video soon. The first 10 minutes is below. I cite the latest Nielsen ratings for on-line communities and blog platforms.

Of course, the 60-minute audio-book WEB MARKETING 2.0 goes into more step-by-step detail!

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It’s growing at an exponential rate: But I’ve found there is still a humongous part of the professional world — especially accountants and financial advisors — who aren’t into blogging & podcasting because they feel it doesn’t apply to them.

First of all, they don’t quite understand the technology - and that scares them. And then, these professionals rarely take part in such media (blogs, podcasts, on-line videos, communities). And when they do (like many those reading this), it’s a foreign experience. Hint: You’re supposed to leave a meaningful comment, and link back to your website.

Moreover, the vast majority of CPA’s, bookkeepers, tax professionals, investment advisors, insurance brokers, and financial planners don’t know if blogging & podcasting will bring more qualified prospects and referrals. They don’t know - and they’re afraid it won’t work….

Here’s how accountants & financial advisors can use “Web 2.0 social media” to market themselves better, even with all the compliance & ethics regulations.

On Friday, I was invited by a large financial services firm to address this question, in context of personal brand marketing. The full 42 minute session will be on Google Video shortly… a juicy 10-minute excerpt is now on YouTube:

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I just finished working out, and eating while watching TV.  Sometimes, life is simply great.  The TV turned on to a local station replaying Wheel of Fortune… celebrity edition, no less.  I think, “hey, why not?”

I already talk about the Wheel of Fortune game show to make another point (more on that later).  And now, they’ve done it again:

The first category was “People” — not “people.”  The category was branded with the People magazine logo and the phrase referenced what would be found inside People magazine.  I wonder if People magazine paid for this “branded category.”  No doubt it’s clever promo for the magazine.  And it’s interesting to viewers and players of the show.

My point is not to herald Wheel of Fortune (tho I do)… rather, this instance reminds me of how innovative we can be once we view our clients as partners.  Together everybody achieves more.  Cooperate & grow.

How have you partnered with clients to market your practice(s) or to add greater value to your clients?

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Stop being all things to all people. Stop chasing more than 1 rabbit.

Targeting a market can be nerve-wracking to some.  ‘Decision’ means ‘to cut off.’  These are the strategic risks entrepreneurs are paid to take.  I’ve heard many different fears from my clients:  They feel as if they’d be alienating, forgetting, or leaving-behind some of their best clients.

But target marketing need not be a shot in the dark.  In fact, it’s completely the opposite.  Picking the right niche should be a well-researched, and justified move.  I’ve identified 6 factors that can help you predict whether or not a tight-knit Community will spark word-of-mouth buzz for you; that’s the topic of the “SALES MOMENTUM” audio-book.

But what’s the first step?  Where should you start, as you try to figure out which target market is right for you?  The attached podcast gives you a head-start on the best decision you can make!

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I was having lunch with two of my clients; I was introducing them (there’s a tip).

And during it, one of my clients talked about a quick anecdote that illustrates the importance of dressing appropriately.  He was going to meet with an executive at a top big box retailer.  He had heard they had a very laid back culture at their Texas HQ.  In fact, he was told that he may want to dress casually.

He took that advice and threw up a nice pair of khaki’s and a button-down shirt emblazoned with their corporate logo.  When he entered the lobby to meet his prospective client, the client was in a pair of jeans and cowboy boots!  Whew, thank goodness he wasn’t in the traditional garb of sales professional.

In such a scenario, the dark suit, white tie, and red tie combo - a sure bet for a banker - would have turned off the prospective client.  At best it would have made the prospect uncomfortable, or worst brand my client a NY city slicker.  Matching your character style and tone is essential for building rapport!

Sometimes, it’s great to stand out!  (For example, when you’re the MC hype-man for the evening fundraiser.)  And other times, it’s better to fit in with the community culture.  Have you ever made a fashion faux pas?

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I learned about this through the Mashable blog post:

Widgetbox - home of my own ‘blidget‘ (which allows you to embed a blog widget of my recent posts) has created a simple Facebook application builder: The App Accelerator. Whatever you can create in HTML, including Flash, can be converted into your very own Facebook application.

A few months ago, Facebook opened up its network to any software developer to help its users customize their on-line community experience. Since then, we’ve been flooded with ways to express ourselves, test our personalities, give each other cutesy distractions.

And now you can join the fun. Facebook applications are naturally Pollen (aka, viral). While you can create your own blog-widget Facebook app, a more user-centric (and self-expressive) opportunity would probably take off faster.

I haven’t yet experimented with it.. but I plan to! Tell me what you’re creating, and I’ll be sure to add your glitter to my Facebook page.

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Ah, there are so many ways we can influence the way people perceive our personal brand. But our real personal brand - our genetic code - is hardwired (for now).

What if we could understand (and improve) our whole DNA, and our genetic strengths and weaknesses? And what if we could have our medicine tailored to our genes? And what if we could google our genetic family tree & our distant relatives? Well, welcome to the future personal brand community:

23andMe.com, started by Anne Wojcicki, the wife of Google founder, Sergey Brin, is going to help us store, analyze, and possibly create a search-based community of our genetic code — for free. Google has invested about $4 mil into this company; and has many genetic research companies as investors too.

A couple of the blogs I read referenced the Forbes article about it. It’s worth the read. And the webcast about the company powering the genetic deciphering (Illumina) is also facinating. Preview the audio through the slideshow; it can get a bit technical, but fast-forward to the truly sci-fi future we will experience in the next few years.

The future is now. Your personal brand community is about to go genetic. And our family tree is about to expand big-time!  …talk about personal brand SEO!

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It happened to me again: I was commenting on somebody else’s blog, and I got inspired to elaborate on my point here. (You can read my comments, featured on other people’s blogs, on the lower right hand side of this page, later.)

Branding is all about pulling prospects to you (or your product) with an emotional connection… We’re moved by great brands; great brands are movements. The Culting of Brands is a great book on this subject.

Corporate Brands force this emotional connection: After all, it take mighty marketing mavens to have us fall in love with what is really a multi-national, multi-billion-dollar, conglomerate. But we do.

Personal Brands, on the other hands, have natural emotional connections. We are a naturally inspired, moved, and are attracted to other people. As we start focusing on what makes our character and charisma distinctive, we immediately differentiate our competency. As we focus on a community to which we can relate, we naturally develop personal brand appeal.

A happy medium between corporate branding (what I call a “forced emotional connection”) and personal branding (aah, “natural emotional connection”) is Mascot Branding. For those of us who don’t want to really capitalize on ourselves, or make our business dependent on our reputation (a vulnerable position as Martha and Imus both felt), we can leverage the personal brand appeal of a MASCOT.

We can think of many other famous companies who use mascots to personify their own service, or their “evil” competitor, a lousy or great customer: In fact, we can vote on them and see the winner parade at NY’s Advertising Week “Favorite Icon”.

Marketing a mascot is just like marketing any other personal brand. We can build a whole world around our mascots even, as the Caveman’s Crib is doing: It’s an experience worthy of its distraction — learn a few “immersive experience” marketing lessons from playing around on the Caveman’s Crib website.

If you don’t want to leverage your reputation, or want to embellish your own personal brand… consider the route of the Mascot. For example, Adam Schwam, founder of Sandwire - a computer technology services company, regularly uses mascots in his marketing and advertising. I interviewed him last summer for a book that I’m writing. Since then we’ve grown a cool relationship; we’re working on writing a “marketing technology” column together and more. (In fact, his illustrator, Michael Mastermaker is the one who drew me for the cover of my Audio-Books.)

I’ll be visiting a new client this afternoon. I know he wants to sell his business after a few years, so he may not want to develop and leverage his own personal brand. Let’s see if he can think outside-the-box of what’s traditional for his industry. By creating a legendary mascot, he would immediately set his company and his “commoditized” service apart. When he’s ready, he can also very easily sell the rights to the business & its mascot - an income-producing asset.

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I took this pic around the corner from me. Surely your neighborhood is no different…

One of the simplest ways to attract buzz about your services or products is to promote around a specific holiday, season, date, or cycle.

Think about your niche prospect/client target market Community: What special dates, events, holidays, or seasons are special to them? Every community “celebrates” (or dreads) certain times of the year — and everybody in that Community knows about it. If it’s not clear to you, target your market some more, or do some more homework.

It’s B2B season again… back-to-business. Now that the kids are out of your hair… Let’s market your personal brand!

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I’m on vacation right now. My uncle suggested I blog about my trip, and look out for [personal brand marketing] tips along the way. Of course I should web-log my trip… I’m On The Road, with my tablet (Kerouac 2.0, I’spose - 40 years hence).

Well, I’ve been having too much fun on my vacation to blog daily. But I got a couple of down hours waiting for my Grand Canyon tour to pick me up…. so here’s 2 vacation-inspired tips:

1. Yesterday’s off-road ATV 4×4 action through the Sonoran desert makes me think of this: You should brand yourself by showcasing your unique interests! It makes you more memorable: Remember, ↑ Remembered ⇔ ↑ Referrals 2. Of course, sharing the hobbies of your community helps to create a bond too. For example, how many of you Mix Greens? …Golf with business?

But that’s not what really inspired me to blog right now. Last year I wrote an article called “What are your White Wires?” for Debonair Magazine. I was also invited to share this personal branding insight to the graduating athletes of C.W. Post University. (I finally got to tell the jocks what to do!)

Yes, times they are a-changing: While white wires still brand the iCommunity, nowadays it hardly brands you. Personalize your vanilla iPod earbuds, brand your distinctive persona: I just learned about Emotibuds (and its extended Emotibles line) while reading nytimes.com/Magazine.

Moreover, this functional-to-fashion accessory helps to illustrate tip #3: How can you take a seemingly ordinary part of your style, and make it extraordinary?

By accentuating something positive about your “external character,” e.g., your wardrobe, body language, etc., you become (as Cosmo Kramer said) “more you, than you’ve ever been!” Its a simple way to stand out. (Tip 4: Like white wires, splashy ties are old hat. My article will help you be more clever.)

I give you specific areas & steps to brand your own “White Wires” in my article. (Tip 5: Caricature artists are great at picking up our distinctive quirks.) “What are your White Wires?” Here’s mine (from the article)…

…I’ve got a penchant for mixing and matching colors like a bad acid trip. So I’ve set out to become known for my eye-popping blazers: Business, creativity, and showmanship, all wrapped up into one.

Last week, I met a colleague at the bank branch he manages. To be introduced to his superiors, I donned a navy suit, tan shirt, and a tame scarlet tie. His eyes popped to a grin, “What? No crazy jacket today?” He leaned over to his partner, “This guy’s got the wildest suits!”

I smirked at his quip. It tells me my fans are noticing, remembering, and talking about me, exactly how I want. I’ve branded my persona onto his mind: My “white wires” may be a 4-button saffron jacket and a striped chocolate shirt. What are yours?

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Last Tuesday, the National Network of Accountants (well, their Preferred Providers Network) invited me to present to them again. They asked me to elaborate on, “How to differentiate yourself.” There are so many ways to showcase your distinctiveness; this whole podBlog is dedicated to that!

I chose a different angle: I focused in the Personal Brand FOCUS FACTOR… Community. Often, I substitute a close synonym: Target Market.

In this seminar, I role played a 1-on-1 Q&A personal brand marketing session that I would do with a client. Mark Badami, Certified Financial Planner, and director of retirement planning for the National Network of Accountants graciously played along. My line of questioning helps to illuminate the referral-generating value of target marketing.

Everybody had a copy of the Community Target Market Story worksheet: You can e-mail me for one or just draw it yourself: 4 progressively smaller rings. 3 intersecting diagonals creates 2 big areas and 4 smaller segments.

The story of your prospect Community answers the 6 questions:

1. Who - demographics, labels
2. What - psychographics, frustrations
3. When - seasons, regulations
4. Where - groups, subscriptions
5. With - complementers, competition
6. Why - your personal brand appeal

Not clear? The audio of my seminar will walk you through an example of filling out the worksheet, and thus targeting your market to the 4°.

At my seminars, there’s usually so much chatter between me and the audience: I’m asking them questions; they’re asking me questions; I’m facilitating small-group exercises. This time, there was pin-drop silence as people listened to our 1-on-1 role play attentively! (It kinda freaked me out - as you may notice.)

The seminar is 33 minutes long: Download it for your iPod (or make your iPhone useful), or have a “lunch’n'learn” with friends!

How focused is your target market? Tell us about it… How many “degrees of ..who..” do you focus?

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