What would motivate an athlete to commit to your football program?

The son of a friend vacillated between two great choices: a Division 1AA university and small Division 3 college.

The 6′ 5″ high school senior liked the idea of playing for the small college, which recruited him hard. The campus was only an hour away from home, and has a strong academic reputation.

But there are no athletic scholarships at a D3 school. The NCAA prohibits them. And the school gives no quarter. You’re pretty much on the hook for the entire $40K per year, if accepted. That is no small number.

After being courted by several schools, the athlete’s final decision came down to the wire. He chose the larger university, with almost a full ride.

What was your name?

I’m not sure the decision came down to money, however.

When the student visited the D3 school, as part of the recruitment activities, the head football coach met with the athlete and his mom. The coach made an emotional, 20-minute pitch to recruit the player.

The coach recounted his own decision to attend the very same college, some thirty years earlier, relaying his ACT score (really?). The coach trumpeted what a great athlete he (the coach) was in the day. The coach was all about the coach. The rah-rah lost some air when the coach paused during one of his motivational rants and said, “Ryan, right? That’s your name, right? Ryan?”

Apparently, the small college wasn’t a place where everyone knows your name. Ryan’s mom was not impressed.

Size with values

A few weeks later, the family (Dad, Mom, and the player) visited the program at the larger university, which is at least four times bigger than the smaller college.

When the father and mom walked into the athletic facility on campus, without their son in tow (he was at a meeting with the head coach), one of the assistant coaches said, “Oh, there are the Johnson’s. How are you doing?” The assistant greeted both the father and the mother by their first name.

Not only did the coaches know who Ryan was, they immediately recognized the parents and greeted them by name.

I doubt that was by accident. Someone (probably the head coach) had championed the value of community, and the assistant coaches probably spent some time going over photos, learning the faces and names of the parents and their athlete. Their job one was making sure Ryan’s family knew they were part of the Family.

The scholarship no doubt had some bearing on the athlete’s decision, but after listening to his parents, I wonder just how much.

Big isn’t necessarily impersonal, and small isn’t always intimate. It’s always about the values, and the small things that communicate those truths.

In the wide world of the web, how do you ensure that when a consumer hops on a search engine they find you first?

Bruce Philp, branding guru to ING Direct and co-author of The Orange Code says that the answer is differentiation. Here in the third of three interviews, Philp talks about how the Internet has changed brand management–and relinquished control to the consumer.

Is the notion of differentiation irrelevant in a “Google-search” world?

Bruce Philp: Trout and Ries would have been hailed as geniuses if they’d described the concept of positioning about twenty years later than they did. Search is the reason why.

Positioning stipulates that a brand be recognizable as one of a pool of comparable brands, and that this pool is defined by a particular kind of user.

Can you give an example?

We don’t think about Levis as competing with all forms of lower extremity coverage, or even with all kinds of pants. They compete with other blue jeans, and we consider what makes them different in that context.

That generates more powerful differentiation, because it forces relevance. It becomes not just a matter of being different, but to whom and against what set of expectations.

How do you win at a search?

To win at search, a brand absolutely must think first about the tribe it’s selling to (to borrow Godin’s word) and their particular expectations and definition of themselves. That discipline directs effective search strategies, but it also directs focused branding.

It seems impossible to manage how people perceive your brand. Is that true?

I contend that it’s impossible to manage a brand anymore. Brands are no longer taught in a one-way, didactic context like they were in the age of advertising. Instead, they are observed across the full spectrum of their behavior.

In effect, this means that everything a brand does adds to its meaning. That’s because there are so many channels open–including the Internet–and because the social consensus that advertising is the ‘official’ voice of a brand is broken.

What happens if you try to strictly manage your brand?

A brand becomes a totalitarian state with a massive bureaucracy focused on control. It moves slowly because every single tactic is a decision. It’s an unsustainable approach for any brand that has to do business with consumers in a competitive context, when disruption is coming at it faster and faster.

When Google can tell me not only what people have said about the brand in the last days, weeks and months, but what they’re saying right now, it’s hard to imagine that the brand as a fascist state can stand.

What’s the alternative?

Manage a brand from principle. This is the constitutional model I proposed in The Orange Code. Instead of creating a book of rules, we create a declaration of principles. We hire for it, we reward it, we tell the world about it so that we’re held to account. Over time, the organization begins to organically behave according to those principles. They become its culture.

Thus, in a world where everything an organization does accretes to the brand, that entire organization will very naturally get it right most of the time.

The American Red Cross had a big problem. The blogosphere was peppered with negative comments about the organization. So the American Red Cross decided to listen to the conversation taking place on the web.

They soon learned there was a gap between how they positioned themselves and how their stakeholders’ described their experience of the organization. Through daily monitoring of blogs and other Web 2.0 tools, the Red Cross changed the way they engage their advocates and recruit volunteers.

According to Geoff Livingston, author of Now is Gone: A Primer on New Media for Executives and Entrepreneurs, this is what today’s customers and donors expect: to be listened to and understood.

Here Livingston offers his advice for making new media marketing programs work for your organization:

Brand & Strategy: Does social media increase lead generation?

Geoff Livingston: It really depends on the program. If you don’t integrate calls to action and natural ways for people to engage further, then your effort is for naught; social media is just a hot shiny object.

Your strategy should treat social media like a toolset, with different ways of communicating. Do your homework. By exploring this site, you can research how organizations have used social media successfully.

Can social media help a non-profit organization increase the number of new donors?

Again, if there’s no integration into your plan, then it won’t! If you do integrate, it will. It all gets back to strategy. Are you talking to donors to accomplish something, or are you just Tweeting? Check out Beth Kanter’s blog for more insights.

How do you convince management to engage in conversations with customer-communities without controlling the conversation?

Show them a blog search with all of the conversations about their company. Or even better, point them to the conversations about their competition. But really, at this stage in the game, if they are still not going forward with social media, it may be time to consider a more innovative organization.

How should “social media releases” be fundamentally different than traditional press releases?

They should be more of a story board for bloggers, providing them multimedia tools to create their own story. Rather than a positioning document, it should provide facts and paths for others to figure out the position, so they can tell it their way.

How do you reach out to bloggers, podcasters, and individuals with high-traffic social network profiles?

You get to know them through conversation over time. You definitely don’t pitch them out of the gates. It’s Relationships 101, really. Treat people like you want to be treated.

How should organizations integrate social media on their own web site?

First, they need to get to know their online community and listen for a while. Then once you understand what your stakeholders actually do online–what they talk about–build your strategy. It should flow naturally.

Twittering, social networking, blogging? They’re all the rave—and your company may be ready to jump on the social media bandwagon to promote your organization.

But beware of getting tripped up by the hype; you’ll need to have a little know-how before you start.

Josh Bernoff, Forrester Research Vice President and co-author of Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, talks about what you need to think about before you harness these new technologies-and how to make them work best for your organization.

Brand & Strategy: Often organizations considering social media and blogging are hung-up on what platform they will use. Is this where their focus should be?

Josh Bernoff: No. When an organization is considering starting a blog, community, or Twittering, the first question should be, “What problem am I hoping to solve?” Maybe you want to get information spread by word of mouth, or try to generate new product ideas. Based on what you want to accomplish, you can pick the right tools and technologies to best meet that challenge.
Why are organizations fearful of using social media to acquire customer opinion?

They think they are in control of their brands. In reality, the majority of customers increasingly decide what brands stand for. That the groundswell speaks for you is hard to get past.

What’s a good first step for small- to medium-sized nonprofit organizations to take that don’t have the Big Corporate budget but want to engage in two-way dialog with their donors?

First, listen to your customers with blog and Twitter searches. Then, begin to comment and respond. You can do a lot of these things cheaply: free platforms for blogging, Twitter is free, even community platforms like Ning are free. The real question is how much time you can put into it.

How should an organization deal with negative comments?

If your products are no good, you’re doomed. But if your customers are just having some problems, then respond. Comment on their blogs and in their discussion groups. Be honest, and people will respect you. See how the cable company Comcast addressed customer issue with @comcastcares. These days, you can address your customers’ problems by Twittering!

Can you share an example of a smaller organization that has harnessed the groundswell well?

One of this year’s winners of the Forrester Groundswell awards was a small credit union in Alberta, Canada. They held a contest, and a youth spokesperson blogged, uploaded YouTube videos, and participated in Facebook – and they generated 2,300 new account signups. To learn more about how they did it, see their entry here: http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell/talking/common_wealth_credit_union.html

What’s a good example of “talking to spread messages” – and how do you identify a “spread message”?

Messages can be specifically designed so that people will spread them. See a great example at www.willitblend.com. The Blendtec company is selling a lot more blenders by having a message that people found amusing and powerful, which prompted them to pass it along to others.

Why is it so easy to find negative examples of marketing?

Several years ago my wife Jana and I needed to redo some floors in our house.

A local flooring store had an offer that was hard not to resist: 0 percent financing for a year.

While Jana and I are not prone to buy on credit, the offer piqued our interest. We visited the store, picked up some samples, and, finally, had some folks from the store out to measure our floors. We got the quote by email, choked a bit at the price, and then promptly delayed making a decision.

Several days passed. Then a week. We liked the folks at the store; the woman was warm, helpful. We thought about getting a second quote from a competitor, but delayed doing so.

The salesperson, though, never followed up after she emailed us the quote. No call. No email.

Finally, after a couple weeks, Jana and I finally said, “Well, are we going to do this or not?”

It made good sense to visit another flooring store and get another quote. We took (ergo, wasted) a perfectly good Saturday afternoon and visited a competitor that had no credit promotion. We had the measurements from the first flooring store, so on the spot the salesperson gave us a quote, for $1000 less, for the same flooring.

We wrote a check that afternoon. And saved $1000.

I hate to admit this: I probably would have paid $1000 more if the salesperson at the first store had simply followed up. All I needed was a nudge. I wanted to be sold to.

So what’s the relationship between marketing (the 0 percent financing offer) and sales (our signing the deal for $1,000 less at the second store)?

A phone call.

If you’re in the service industry (university enrollment, donor development, professional services, etc), and no one is paying attention to the relationship between marketing and “sales,” you may be missing out on picking off the low-hanging fruit.

One size does not fit all.

You’d think advertisers would know that, before spending billions aimed at so-called Soccer Moms. Research indicates most women aged 25 to 45 don’t identify themselves as such.

Whether or not you’re marketing to women exclusively, tailoring your message to the segments of your audience is critical.

Holly Buchanan, co-author of The Soccer Mom Myth – Today’s Female Consumer: Who She Really Is, Why She Really Buys, talked to Brand & Strategy about identifying your customers’ personas and giving them what they want and need:

Brand & Strategy: You argue women want to be acknowledged as consumers with individual needs, not just as members of the female demographic. Is that also true of men?

Holly Buchanan: Everyone wants to think that advertisers are speaking directly to them. But women, more so than men, don’t want to be treated as stereotypes. Their lives are so much richer and more complicated than that. Images and messages that will resonate with them are those that reflect how they see themselves.

So how do you do that?

You begin by creating what we call personas. You can typically identify four or five that incorporate the varied lifestyles, needs, motivations, and buying processes of each of your audience segments. Then you can address each in the manner that will appeal to that specific audience. But be careful not to fragment your message so much that you sacrifice consistency.

What are some of the personas you’ve identified?

An oversimplification would be to equate them to the Myers Briggs Type Indicator, which categorizes how people process information. Are they Left-brain or Right-brain? Spontaneous or Methodical? Humanistic or Competitive?

It’s not enough to identify how your customers are the same—you also need to know how they’re different. You need to do what we call “uncovery” to get to the whys behind customer needs and characteristics.

Seems too complicated to reach each persona with a unique message.

The Internet is a powerful way to connect to different segments of your customer base. Your web site is the most effective place to start. The key is to provide clear pathways so that each persona can find the information they’re looking for when they need it. Then your visitors can self-select the experience they want.

How do you determine what it is they want?

Start by listening to your customers, not just talking to them! Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and objections are a great place to begin your research—they tell you what people want to know and where they get hung-up in the buying process. Make sure you address these upfront! And don’t shy away from addressing any drawbacks or “This isn’t for you if … ” scenarios.

If you’re upfront about the negatives, folks are much more likely to believe you about the positives.

What about social media?

Social media has put the consumer firmly in control of the buying process. You can also find out what people already are saying about you on blogs and consumer feedback forums.

If you don’t include your consumer in the “conversation” they will tune you out.

You talk about how “Everything is marketing” and there are hundreds of touch-points. How can you control them all?

You can’t control everything—but you better control everything you can. Small details can be huge in the midst of a purchasing decision—everything from the lighting in your store, the friendliness of your operator, to the cleanliness of your washrooms. The challenge is to not just meet your customers’ expectations but to go beyond that—to delight them.

We’ve found that if you can meet the expectations of your female customers, you will have exceeded the expectations of your male customers.

You’d call it absurd: a meatball sundae. Who’d ever combine the two?

Yet marketers do it all the time. They rashly garnish their meatballs—the traditional marketing basics their business is founded on—with fancy and tantalizing New Marketing tactics, such as social media.

CZ president Dave Goetz interviewed marketing guru Seth Godin about “New Marketing” and how organizations should think about and implement it for success.

B&S: How do I convince senior management to invest in New Marketing now for a payoff down the road?

Seth Godin: Well, it’s not easy. They got hired by someone who wanted them to do what they used to do, not to do something new. I’m not so sanguine that most of these organizations will figure out what to do in time. They surely missed the last two revolutions online. That’s why I wrote Meatball Sundae.

There are leaders who feel the transition you describe but also feel paralyzed about where to start. What is the intelligent starting point, aside from throwing lots of money at it?

Throwing money isn’t going to do it, not a chance. What will work is setting up something “across the street.” Get some great people, leave them alone, and challenge them to put you out of business by playing by the new rules. That’ll work.

Any examples of nonprofits that “re-launched” their organization into this new world of New Marketing?

The magic word is “re-launched.” Roomtoread.org and kiva.org and acumenfund.org didn’t re-launch—they launched. It’s the same way that Google isn’t called randomhouse.com and Wikipedia isn’t called britannica.com. I’m not so sure people have the guts to re-launch. I hope they do.

New Marketing is about building permission assets—direct to your community. How do you start building a permission asset today?

I think it’s about making a promise and keeping it. You measure every single day how many people WANT to hear from you. Not put up with it, but look forward to it. Complain when you don’t show up. If you measure that, and innovate around it, you’ll find it.

Social media allows you to engage your community in a real conversation. What are some of the things that kill authentic online conversation?

Social media isn’t about you, it’s about me. The minute you make it about you, I leave.

Which of your trends drives all the others?

The power of the consumer. To ignore you. To talk about you. To interact with you.