Messaging

I was sitting in a coffee shop a few weeks ago and saw a business card promising that the proprietor could work on everything from a broken kitchen cabinet to an unresponsive computer network. My brain immediately launched into marketing mode and I wondered just how would I go about distilling this handyman’s talents into a few key messages.

Early in my work with a new client I try to help them create a few strong clear key messages that make it easier to define who they are and what they offer. Once armed with this knowledge properly targeted marketing surely will follow.

Easy right? Well not so easy that my job is undertaken by most otherwise talented entrepreneurs. I am also grateful that my skills are not so easily outsourced to workers in a third world country.

At least so far…

Salud’

As both a marketer and consumer I am torn when I come across great marketing attached to a mediocre product or service.  I applaud the skill of the marketing effort but share the disappointment in a promise undelivered.  No such conflict exists with Rombi Wines.

A few months ago Buckley Radio VP Kathy Baker sent me a link to the winery’s website and a pair of recently commissioned long form videos.  I thought they did a great job of capturing the passion of winemaker Sal Rombi and the beauty of his vineyard.  A few weeks ago I was pleased to receive a bottle from the winery’s “Official Taster” Kathy Baker.  Yes her passion extends beyond radio.  We did a swap, my blackberry dessert wine for her 2006 Merlot.  I got the best of that exchange.

I raise my glass and say “Salud’” to Rombi Wines.  It is reaffirming when the product inside is as good as the marketing outside.

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*Salud’ is Italian for Cheers.  More formally it is “Salute’” but I tend to hear what was spoken around me where I grew up.

Shoes

As I approached the rebranding of me I was reminded of the old tale “The Cobbler’s Shoes.”  The reference is to the busy cobbler who never had time to repair the shoes of his own children.  There I was giving advice to my clients and guiding their upgraded web and brand presence while ignoring my own.

This inadequacy was brought forward to a contemporary point in a post a while back by British based Guy Browning at Smokehouse and used with permission:

“There is an old saying that cobblers children have no shoes.  This holds equally true in business today. For example a marketing company will take five years to produce a simple brochure that says nothing about the company.  An IT company will have a forty year old steam powered internal network that can’t handle e-mail or any other information.  Banks and financial institutions are forever going under because of financial difficulties.

This rule applies to every single business and organisation in the country. You try finding a first aid tin in a hospital or a torch in a lighthouse.  The one weapon the Swiss Army don’t have?  You’ve guessed it.”

Well for me that was then.  Today I quiet one of my daughter’s most effective verbal weapons against one of her parents, the accusation “Hyp-O-Crite.”  I am once again practicing what I preach.  And it feels good.  Thanks first to the terrific web design team of Marni and Nicolette at PaperSky Design who conceived and executed the new web presence for Stagnaro Strategic Marketing.  My gratitude also to old friend and social media guru Woody Goulart who patiently lead me to this next level of understanding.

As an aside, in poking around the internet to make sure I had the cobbler reference correct I discovered that today’s cobblers are enjoying a renaissance.  The current economic woes have driven people to repair not discard.  Seemingly the old economic rules still apply and there is a way to prosper even in the darkest of temporary times.

First

If you’re like me, you were born before personal computers were introduced in the 1970s. If so, you and I are digital immigrants–people who grew up without digital technology and adopted it later.

I met Steve Stagnaro in the 1970s. I won’t give the exact year, so he and I can lie about how young we are. But, in those days–before there were personal computers or cell phones or videocassette recorders–we embarked on career paths and arrived at marketing as our chosen profession.

The oh wow moment is here, my friends: You can succeed in marketing in today’s digital age at any age.

How few or how many birthdays you have celebrated in your life doesn’t really matter. Here’s the secret to succeeding in today’s marketing: Learn the best practices of using personal computers, the Internet, hand-held digital devices, and social media channels to add to what you already know about how to connect with people one-to-one.

All of us online today are literally at a distance from other people. I am typing these words on a computer near Washington, DC. Yet, you can be reading this text on your cell phone while driving on the freeway in San Jose–not one of those best practices that I mentioned.

Web sites and social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Yammer–and all the rest with other funny names–are capable of enabling us to connect to people, one-to-one. The trick is to learn how to use this available technology we have today without separating ourselves from others by staying behind glass touchscreens.

I am pleased that Steve Stagnaro listened to my advice that he should embrace social media for marketing. Now, we all can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. Now, you can turn to him for hands-on lessons learned. Now, you, too, can embrace this digital technology for connecting one-to-one with people in your marketing efforts.