When To Change Everything Or Nothing

Sometimes a blog runs its course. Sometimes a marketing campaign runs too long. Occasionally an individual advertisement dissapears too quickly. We've all seen it happen, maybe even been part of it. Why does this happen?

Any ideas?

Dumb luck? Fickle audience? Bad product?

Probably, but generally no.

Much like in sales, everything has a break even point. Stop too early, and you miss it. Stop too late, and you run the risk of losing it all. Finding that point is a skill that not very many people have, and even those people aren't always perfect at finding it. For every time the break even point is hit, and you cut and run at the right time, there are untold numbers of people who stayed too long, or left too early.

The thing about it is, there's no generalization on how to find the spot. It could be years, months, weeks, days, hours, or any other time measurement. A blog could reach that point in three years, whereas a commercial may hit it within weeks or months, and that's with a quality product. The break even point for a subpar idea is likely to be even shorter.

What break even points have you come across?

Thanks for reading!!

The Return! Business Cards

I've been gone for way too long. I have plenty of ideas to write about, since I was thinking things up the entire time I wasn't writing. But for my first post back after such a break, I thought I would talk about business cards.

Business cards have become another very important tool in marketing and promotion. In many cases, gone are the days of plain white cardstock with black printing and a logo in the top left corner. Business cards are no longer an afterthought only used as a simple way to leave your contact information with a client or friend. For many freelancers, artists, and other types of designers, a business card is more like a small advertisement. There are dozens of blogs and individual articles on the web about innovative and interesting business cards, everything from die cut cards in hundreds of different shapes, to cards on clear plastic, wood, even beef jerky.

Even non design based industries can benefit from a unique business card - a dentist's office with cards shaped like a tooth, or with dental floss embedded in the card, for instance. I've seen divorce lawyers with cards that are perforated in the middle and have the information on both halves of the card. Just about anyone can be creative with their business cards these days.

Of course, being creative just to be creative will shine through - overly gaudy or complicated cards will be ignored or discarded without a second thought. A neon green business card with purple lettering for anyone other than a graphic designer would probably be a bad idea. A business card that looks like a child designed and wrote it would be a bad idea for anyone other than a daycare provider.

With all of the blogs out there about business cards, good cards, bad cards, interesting cards, and everything else, its easy to get caught up in the storm of having unnecessarily customized cards. A font color change, or something as simple as a new graphic or text rewrite may be all that you needed. Especially if you're starting to follow the trend of using your email signature as a business card, or doing it any other electronic way.

Simple can be just as eye catching as complicated, provided either one is done right.

Know When Not To

I'm definitely not breaking any new ground here...but this is something that needs to be said every so often.

Everything you're taught when you are learning ANYTHING, not just marketing or advertising, is to help you figure out what and when things need to be done.

What you aren't taught is NOT doing. These days too much emphasis is placed on putting out as much as possible as often as possible, no matter what.

Sometimes its better to not do something. I've been living that idea with this blog lately, because I've been trying to post something for weeks now, and I hate almost everything I come up with - therefore I don't post it, because I know not to - I have standards and a quality level in mind in regards to this blog, and I haven't been meeting it lately.

If you don't hear from me as often as you should - its because I know when NOT to talk. I do know when TO talk, but knowing NOT to talk is just as important.

Do What Nobody Else Is Doing

The other day I wrote about not doing something just because you have the opportunity, just so you can get your name out there, just so you can have the experience.

Today, I'm very nearly going to contradict myself, but I promise it will make sense.

If you can take a look at what you want to be doing, and everyone within that field is doing it the same way, the time is ripe for someone to come in and be different. Take a look at how everyone else is going from point A to point B...there's probably another way to do it. Maybe it's been thought of, maybe its been tried, maybe it blew. But sometimes the best way from point A to point B is actually backwards, by going from point B to point A. Be the one doing it differently.

Yeah, I realize those of you familar with Seth Godin will recognize that idea, its pretty much what he's built his career on. Doing it differently. Doing it how nobody else is doing it. He's right, though. Why be just another person when you can be the only yourself? If everyone is wearing blue, why aren't you wearing red?

There are plenty of companies and individuals out there who have taken advice from Seth Godin and ran with it...and there are plenty who have not. But that doesn't matter...the way most companies flourish these days is because they're different. Zappos started selling SHOES on the internet. Who would have thought that would work? Now look at them.

This is no new phenomenon either. Since the massive commercialization of the United States, and a large portion of the world, really...very few companies or people have made money by being the same. It happens, of course, but it's not likely. Be different. Be you.

What are your favorite companies or individuals that were successful by being themselves or by doing something different from everyone else?

Thanks for reading...

Step Outside The Box - Literally

Going along with my previous post about coloring, is this one, that was slightly inspired by it.

Why stop at coloring outside the lines? That is a figurative excercise, which is indeed important, but sometimes you need to be literal. Step outside the box.

Why should you do something the same way it's always been done? Tradition? Bullshit. Because you know it'll work? Bingo. Try something different. Take a look around where you are now...chances are a lot of the stuff is there because someone took a literal step outside the box. Putting your product in an unusual place...changing its form factor....changing what it's used for. Selling music at Starbucks. Selling food at a bookstore. Writing a diary on the internet. Email.

Each of those was done because someone thought outside the box. Most of those we take for granted today...what will we take for granted tomorrow?

Thanks for reading...

Outside The Lines

Remember when you were little and started learning how to color? Take one crayon, and just go all over the paper without even realizing that the lines were there for a reason. I am getting to witness this kind of thing firsthand, because my nephew is starting to flex his creative muscles with scribbles and such. It looks like such a joyous experience, I wish I could remember that time in my life.

Why do we stay in the lines now? Isn't marketing and advertising about drawing outside the lines? How else would we come up with anything new? Please remember that time in your life when it was a joy just to scribble purple over Santa Claus, or make a black Easter Bunny...and put that into your work.

Thanks for reading...

Do The Opposite

An alternate title for this was "Do Your Worst", but it didn't really seem right to make it seem like I was going to deliberately tell you that sucking is a good idea.

Do the opposite, start from the end, reverse engineer...these all mean the same thing. These ideas are usually used in cases of failure, so you can see what it was in the chain that caused the failure. Its also a good way to figure out your competitors and how they do what they do. Have you ever seen something that's made you say "How'd they do that?" That is a case that you should take on in reverse, see what they did that got them to the end.

Another way to use reverse engineering is to start at the end of a project you haven't even started yet.

Wait, what? Start at the end, when I don't even have a beginning?

Yes. You already have an end...your client has told you what they want. Take what they want and work backwards. You know how things are supposed to turn out in the end...see how you can take the end and trace backwards to the beginning. It will help you gain a fresh perspective on everything.

Social Networking vs Business Networking

Over the past couple of days, the topic of Social Networking as a business, or being able to USE Social Networking as a business model from the user side, nor the owner side has been emerging. The question that is being raised is if Social Networking as it is set up right now can support or would welcome business integration beyond banner or clicker advertisements.

Social Networking as it stands right now cannot support business. People are too suspicious of spam or mass marketing and similar things to really get into adding a business side to a social network. What needs to be done is there needs to be a business network developed SPECIFICALLY for the business side of things. LinkedIn is part of the way there, because it allows people to communicate on a business level on things they have in common or want to have in common, whether that be a person or a particular characteristic of business.

However, adding a sales side to LinkedIn would be incredibly difficult as things are at the moment. I'm not sure that the internet community as a whole can truly support a social network built for business purposes other than networking. I don't even think it is because of security measures, because things can be done to combat most of the questions. I just don't think that the internet community, or the world at large even is ready to support a full on social business network.

Thanks for reading...

Reboot

So. I've been seeing movie previews for the upcoming reboot/remake of the Friday the 13th series. This kind of thing is becoming a lot more popular these days, it seems like original ideas are out the window again. Its another one of those cycles, I guess.

The interesting thing is, the industry will reboot just about anything, even movies that were amazing! The marketing/advertising industry rarely uses this kind of terminology..."we need to reboot the Coca Cola marketing campaign" Okay, that's a bad example, because they kinda did need to reboot when Coke II turned out to be a disaster. The advertising world has little patience for redoing anything.If something's been done, it's more than likely not going to be done again. The industry evolves on what seems to be a daily basis. Yeah, every so often someone will come along and borrow something that was successful in the past, but almost never for the same product.

To me, remaking or rebooting just shows a lack of ambition, creativity and originality. There has to be periods of time when one or more of those three things is lacking, but hopefully the other two can make up for it. Right now, it seems like the movie industry is lacking in all three concepts, which is steadily causing behind the scenes issues and other problems. I don't believe there has been a recent period in our marketing or advertising when a lack of one of the three concepts wasn't covered by an abundance of the other two. I can't recall a time where the industry as a whole was so ass backwards that it almost hurt to watch.

Sure, there have been badly done commercials, just as there have been badly done movies. An oopsie here and there doesn't define the whole era, an era is defined by everything that surrounds it within its industry. If the recession we are in continues, money will be tighter and tighter, and cheap easy ideas (remakes) will prevail because they take the least effort. I can only hope that what looms ahead in our economy will not destroy the industry that I love. I can only hope that it will be there on the other side. Many people believe that our industry is immune, but it isn't. Budgets shrink, and ideas are stretched thin...but they're still there, and they will continue to be there. They have to be. Not just for me, not just for you, but for everyone.

Thanks for reading...

Purple Cows and Outliers

Are all these authors and bloggers that write about being innovative, and the how and why of certain people becoming sucessful all writing about the same thing? Do they all have the same ideas, but explain them in different ways?

Yes. But that's not a bad thing, and let me tell you why.

Not all people learn the same way. Some people are visual, some are aural, and some learn by doing...I could go on. In the same vein, not all people respond to advertising or marketing the same way. That's why there are so many companies that need to find more than one way to say what they mean - to attract as many people as possible.

The obvious example of people coming at the same idea from two completely different directions are ones that I referenced in the title of this entry. Seth Godin's Purple Cows, and Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. Seth uses the term purple cow to describe that one thing about an entity that makes it special. It can be almost anything, tangible or intangible. Malcolm uses the mathematical term outlier to put more of an analytic spin on the same idea, but by being a bit more specific. Seth relies on thought and creativity and using the mind to think for himself. Malcolm relies on mathematical calulation and statistical analysis from many different angles.

Yet, they're both coming to the same conclusion. What makes you stand out is not what makes you the same as everyone or everything else, it's what makes you different. That seems pretty obvious, but in reality finding what makes you different is very difficult, no matter which angle you come at it from. Why would you want to be the same as something else? Why not? If that something is successful, why not try to be as much like it as possible? That's now things work these days...find a similarity, use it, but exploit your differences, provided they're positive. If your differences aren't positive, find the similarity and fix it.

Seth Godin and Malcolm Gladwell set out to put to words the way that they do things. Did they intend to provide the same message in entirely different ways? Probably not, but as we all know, eventually, the quickest way between points is a straight line. There is no one way to accomplish something, but to be done correctly and successfully, there must be a legitimate base, and both gentlemen had the idea to write about their thoughts on what goes into making something unique. Both men have written on many topics, but intentional or not, they both wrote great explanations of the same topic, by coming at it from completely different directions.

Thanks for reading...