1. Very few brands make it to top tier of visual branding – where your symbol alone is enough to associate products with the brand in customers’ minds. This is common now with the Swoosh, the Golden Arches, the Apple, the Siren, and now, the Target. When your mark is so strong that you don’t need to even print your company name, much less its location or address, to make the proper connection to the brand in the eyes of the customer, you have arrived. This lets you unclutter your message and get everything else out of the way.

    Very few brands make it to top tier of visual branding – where your symbol alone is enough to associate products with the brand in customers’ minds. This is common now with the Swoosh, the Golden Arches, the Apple, the Siren, and now, the Target.

    When your mark is so strong that you don’t need to even print your company name, much less its location or address, to make the proper connection to the brand in the eyes of the customer, you have arrived. This lets you unclutter your message and get everything else out of the way.

  2. Listen, understand, then boil it down

    Attending an industry trade show full of booths this week, I’m amazed (as always) at the amount of fluffy, tiresome content that companies create for marketing to their audiences.

    I had a chat with a business development pro who just returned from a two-year sales stint in Australia. He learned quickly that, “Down Under,” customers had NO interest in his American-style Powerpoint presentations on a projector. Instead, the first few sales meetings had to take place casually over coffee.

    In an hour sales meeting, the first 45 minutes consisted of football talk, family news, and other chit-chat. In the last 15 minutes, the customer would ask “so what did you want to talk about?” He’d have to summarize why he asked for the meeting, what he was selling and why he thought they’d be interested – in about 2 minutes. They’d then schedule a next meeting to talk about that.

    At the next meeting, the same exercise continued, but it was only about 30 minutes of football talk before the customer would casually get around to the topic of business. But still, no slides, no numbers, no handouts – just a free-form chat of the business pains and the essentials of the solution he was selling.

    Often, he had to “warm up” the customer with two, three, four meetings this way before finally getting around to the nitty gritty business. The relationship and understanding of the customer had to come first.

    The great contrast, he said, was that it forced him to really get to know his customer and listen to his needs before ever “pitching.” It also forced him to know his product well enough to tailor its value to each customer in conversation, unaided by bullets or slides.

    Listen. Understand. Simplify. Customize. Can you tailor your marketing message this way? 

  3. MOO | Custom Business Cards, MiniCards, Postcards and more →

    It’s hard not to recommend Moo.com for letterhead printing. These are some of the coolest business cards, notecards and other paper products out there. They’re popular for their custom photo mini-cards, which are especially useful for artists and photographers. 

    Plus, they’re fun and love what they do, and it shows in their product and their service.

    Here’s a referral link for a discount: http://www.moo.com/share/s2zdq8

    Moo!

  4. Fox Sports Editors Convey More Than Content

    This week, FOX Sports had to formally apologize for its offensive promo video making fun of Asians and Asian-Americans on the USC campus. The full story is covered at Ragan PR, but it brings up an interesting point.

    Even though the editors at Fox Sports may have been trying to make a point that no one cares about the #11 and #12 teams in the Pac-10 (now the Pac-12), that point was overshadowed by the racially-themed story vehicle they tried to make the point.

    The even louder message here is that the editors didn’t check themselves. In fact, it appears NO ONE at Fox Sports said “hmm…. is this the best way to say this? Is this offensive to the people portrayed in the video?”

    Part of telling your message is realizing content and context work together to carry your message. Because no one at Fox Sports raised a red flag about this idea, the world gets a not-so-subtle message, in addition to the video content, about the organization that produced it. 

  5. You don’t have to be a Jedi.

    Han Solo wasn’t a Jedi, but he still played a huge role in bringing balance back to the Force. The same goes for writing. While you should always put forth your best effort, you don’t have to be Hemingway or Poe. As long as your ideas are strong and you write clearly, your content will excel. In content marketing, an excellent idea is better than a poetic sentence.

    — 10 Ways to Write Like a Content Marketing Jedi | Content Marketing Institute

  6. New “Collective Agency” co-working space opens in Old Town August 1 →

    Exciting news for the creative/digital community today in Portland. The co-working space formerly known as Souk has been re-launched as Collective Agency, an open co-working space in Old Town.

    With ambitious ideals for its community and a pragmatic business plan, we’re hoping for the best for this latest addition to the Portland co-working scene. 

  7. Standing up to blog bullies

    Last night at the Content Strategy PDX Meetup, over a discussion on the Content Rules and business blogging, the discussion turned to getting your client over the anxiety of having his/her own name and voice “out there” on a blog for all to see.

    A great example is the executive whose biggest fear is not what his customers, nor his employees, nor what his family and friends think when they discover he can’t write — but that his competitor would be able to read his blog and leave nasty comments on the posts. 

    This is a very real fear for lots of business executives, where circles are small and colleagues and rivals alongside one another in the industry together for years. Not unlike children in the playground. There is always that one other kid whom you fear might come over, poke you in the chest, kick you in the shins and humiliate you.

    Everyone has insecurity. But you can’t let that keep you off the playground. Sometimes you might have to walk away, and sometimes you may have to slug it out. Staying indoors isn’t an option.

  8. Getting yourself out there

    I had coffee with a friend today whose services business is a little slow these days. She’s in the design consulting business, and while I don’t like to say the economy is bad, it’s definitely not for those without hustle.

    She’s got a Web site, and a monthly e-mail newsletter, which is better than some. But she’s never considered Facebook or Twitter for extending her business’ reach across the Web. Up until now, she has considered social media “B.S. I don’t have time for.” Trying to be helpful, I gave her a brief earful of things to consider, and all the ways these tools can help. 

    Like it or not, folks, something changed in the last year with the Web and the market dominance of Facebook and Twitter on the social Web. It doesn’t matter now whether you have time or interest in social media. The fact is, every serious business today has a social media strategy, even traditional businesses. It doesn’t matter if you’re a dentist or a carpenter or an organic seed farm. Today, if your business doesn’t have some kind of Facebook and Twitter page, you run the risk of being among the last of your competitors to get social.