In The Who’s rock opera Tommy, the main character experiences a trauma that leaves him deaf, dumb and blind (though he sure plays a mean pinball).

Don’t leave your audiences in the same position. You want to get all their senses going to trigger an emotional reaction and act — hopefully to buy your product or service – or at least find out more.

Sight: There are some extreme and obvious examples of using sight to get a response, but also some of a more subtle nature. Color, for example, can play a major role in how customers feel when they view your material – digitally and in print. Whether you have a neutral gray background or a red background will both attract a different audience and make each person feel a very different way.

The images used on your pages play a major factor for sight. Are people smiling, are they sad? Are there people on the materials at all? Connotations play a HUGE role here.

Sound: You know the members of your audience. How long is their attention span? Perhaps some form of multimedia is the better way to get your message out. If you have a video or audio clip a user can click to play, you might get to your audience more than you would with traditional text. Multimedia can work well in concert with text elements to highlight and make tangible the products or services you offer.

Touch: A Kindergarten teacher had a desk drawer for her kids who stood out. If you did something nice, you got a soft white cotton ball. If you were bad, you got a prickly pine cone. Is your mailer glossy and shiny? Is it textured to scream recycled paper? Is it thick and beefy? Is it 3D? All of these describe marketing materials that stand out when someone touches them. How are you standing out from your competition?

Smell/Taste: If you like wine, you know that most of tasting wine is smell. Try plugging your nose and taking a sip. You’ll find it “tastes” remarkably different. If you want your potential customers to walk away with a good taste (perhaps even literally), some form of scratch-and-sniff or fragrance printing might be the way to go.

Curious about making senses work well in your marketing materials? Let Burst Marketing help.

The worst advice we see is thinking only of your long-term strategy (your 5 year plan, if you will). There is a fundamental flaw in this approach, and your business is bound to lose money if you follow that advice. We believe in short-term (6-18 month) strategies that create measurable results and are the basis to your long-term goals. So, what are the flaws in thinking only in the long-term?

Not testing your product. Testing is the only way to know if your product or service can live in the “real world.” Take a cue from big companies like Apple and GE – don’t skimp on R&D. Long-term strategists neglect to mention this core element of success.

Not testing your marketing plan and tactics. If you don’t test your plan and tactics, how will you know what works? If you approach your plan in the short-term mindset, you can adjust your tactics to fill needs and review the best practices for success. Long-term tactics are hard to measure and test.

Use gimmicks. Gimmicks rarely work, and most consumers are savvy enough to see through this. Many view a gimmick as a cover-up for a flaw in your product or service. Avoid gimmicks whenever possible. Long-term tactics don’t account for testing (see above), and suggest using gimmicks to fall back on to boost sales.

Be appealing to lots of people. WRONG! You might as well just dump cash in your in-sink-erator. Create a target audience with very specific demographics and psychographics, and create a “marketing GPS” to find it. This will allow you to test your message and hone in on the group most likely to benefit from your product.

We always craft our marketing campaigns to drive short-term results first. When we know what works in the 6-18 month time frame, we can create long-term strategies based on those results. Keep these tips in mind to avoid the “bad advice” pitfalls.

IMHO this word – Brand – is thrown around much too casually.  Every creative shop in town talks about “Branding” to their clients.  But, do they really know what branding is?

A complete Brand strategy will accomplish two important objectives.  Here they are along with a sentence to clarify:

1. Explain why anyone should do business with you
   • Defining who you are and the benefit(s) you deliver to a specific target audience over a long period of time.

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2. Aid in recognition and recall
   • Creating a recognizable logo and differentiable tag line along with supportive color schemes and consistency guidelines for how to use them.

Unfortunately, too often Brand is mistakenly thought of as only a visual thing.

A Brand strategy should help you generate business.  It must answer the “why” question to generate profitable action.  It’s more than just the pretty stuff.

My partner Dave recently had trouble with his iPhone.  As great a gadget as the iPhone is, neither Apple nor AT&T Wireless offer insurance on the iPhone.  Best Buy stepped in offering the only insurance available on the product – serviced by its Geek Squad.

Oh oh…dead cow!

After 2 years of paying $11+ per month, Dave needed service.  He dropped it off at the Geek Squad – “it’ll be ready and back here by Friday.”  Friday comes…and an hour of voicemail hell later…”sorry, maybe tomorrow.”  Saturday…no answer at the Geek Squad all day.  He left a message with the store’s customer service to please call him back.  Sunday…another hour of the run around, “sorry, there are no deliveries on Saturday or Sunday.  Maybe Monday?”

“I didn’t even get a call from you guys, isn’t there a message for you?”  “Truth is we’re really busy, and there’s a whole pile of messages sitting on this desk.  We don’t look at them.  We just wait for the customer to call back.”

Okay – get the picture?  Now ponder this:

Best Buy is in the electronics business.  Why can’t they put your order status online for you to check?  Or shipping status?  Especially when the Geek Squad desk is too busy to even look at the pile of messages on their desk!

Best Buy promised a service that made them unique – but the promise turns out to be pretty empty.  That’s a dead cow.  That’s utter brand destruction.

In a recent article on Mashable.com, Christina Warren made a mistake that I hear all the time. She writes:

“Social media does inherently mean that you are giving up the ability to centrally control the message.”

While her article is interesting (it’s about social media and the Grammy awards), I think she’s a bit off base on that point. Getting involved in social media does not mean giving up control of your message. It means accepting that you weren’t in control to begin with.

She goes on to talk about why companies who do ‘give up control’ tend to succeed in social media:

“However, what is interesting is that the companies that embrace and accept that grain of truth are usually those that are most successful with social media.”

It’s no mystery why this happens. It’s the same reason that a person who can admit his or her weaknesses is the one who eventually overcomes them. Once a brand accepts that the message is beyond it’s control, it can begin to influence the conversation in the right direction. It can begin taking steps to get people talking positively.

It’s not about giving up control. It’s about giving up the illusion of control. And the sooner a brand can do that, the better they’ll leverage new media.

We’ve been operating for months as Burst Marketing and doing strategy and Burst campaigns for many clients.  But often, we advise firms with a new offering or business structure to do some learning following a “soft launch” to work out some of the bugs inevitably present in a new venture.

Burst Marketing brings lots of talented folks together under one roof.

And so many of them put me to shame in what they know.  So, why would I deprive our friends and customers of their fresh viewpoints on the marketing life?  It takes many hands to build a village.

And we’ll be bringing some complementary voices to this page.  We hope you find them enlightening.

I’m sure there are many talented people in your organization.  When customers and targets hear the many voices that make up your company – everyone can benefit.

Once you articulate a clear vision and your core message across your company…let those around you spread their wings.

You’ll see how they, and you, will fly.

Tens of millions will tune in.  Most for the game.  Regardless – it’s what they call “appointment TV.”  The Olympics start soon too.  American Idol is in full swing.  Fire up the DVR.

Pulling interest and creating loyalty to a group of stars or a certain concept is what network programming is all about.  They seek the magic formula that will get you coming back for every episode.  What gets you to care.

That’s your job too. What gets your customers to care about you?

The Albany Business Review has an article on Price Chopper’s (Golub Corp.) Fuel Advantage program this week.  That’s the program that gives you a discount on gas for shopping with them.  They’ve meshed two things you deeply care about.

Food and Gas.  Basic.

The equation is even clearer for them because local competition is among just a few major brands.  Although they are tough competitors – shopper in this market basically choose from Price Chopper, Hannaford, and WalMart when it comes to supermarkets.

You win the tug of war, more come to you.  Of course, there’s a new match regularly.  Each seeking that little edge over the other.

It’s more difficult to find the caring when you offer a product or service in an exceptionally crowded field.  Or if you’ve basically become a commodity.

Now what?

In this scenario, finding the caring often comes down to who’s the more relevant to the customer.  What are they looking for besides your offering?  Is it comfort and trust.  Personal relationship.  How green you are?  Convenience?  Who your other customers are?

It’s somewhat different in each market category.  Each geography.  Your job is to find it.  Find what’s most relevant to your targets and ensure that your businesses authentically offers it.

For years, saying something is the “Cadillac” of [insert type product of service] said it was the best of the best.  A “Chevy” or a “Honda” (sorry Toyota) means affordable and/or reliable.

Find the caring.  Be real.  And find your customers.

So during last night’s figure skating tuneup (for watching it on TV), my friend asked me an interesting question -

“If you could be any Olympian, in any sport, what would it be?” “I’d like to be able to fly on my feet”, I said, “to win the 100 meter dash and be the world’s fastest human!”

Cool huh? Never happen. But ain’t it fun to dream?

Some businesses though, seem to confuse their dreams with reality.

One research project we completed on the Albany contractor market revealed this example:

This company, a top 5 player, is in on all the major bids in the market. They do good work and win their fair share. But, somewhere deep inside, they dream of being a beautiful showroom, dazzling the public with their offerings rather than embracing the hardhat that pays the bills.

That disconnect between who you really are and who you really want to be can create confusion among customers.

This firm did open a showroom, and our research showed that some of their commercial customers became confused about who they were. And, it cast doubt on whether they were focused enough on their core business to be awarded the next bid – regardless of their pricing. True or not – that’s not the type of doubt you want hanging out there.

There are many, smart tactical approaches you can follow to spread your wings into new markets.

Dreams of being a butterfly can provide ample motivation.  Be sure, however, to first embrace your inner caterpillar.

Everything from dancing babies to the Obama girls made its way across millions of screens across the globe.  And the word viral went from an adjective to a noun.  As in, “it went viral.”

Now everyone tries to figure out that one elusive quality that make their message go viral.  But unless you can “force” viral on people with a big bucks campaign, then for most of us, chasing viral is like catching lightning in a bottle.

In 2010, go back to the original viral.  Infect people.  Viral will still work for you, but it will start with a few small sparks here and there – not the sweeping brushfire everyone wants.

If your message and methods are infectious…then look for patient zero.

Posted by: Steve Banis

One thing I really want to know is what makes people tick after 18+ months of this oppressive economy.

So I spent a couple of hours in Borders and picked up a few books to start with.  The one I started this morning already has my mind reeling.  And I’ve only read the introduction.

Here’s why I’m a little freaked:

Greed (money, offers of discounts or “free” things, etc.) may actually interfere with getting a target to do what you want them to do.

Again.  Paying Money or giving something for Free won’t work.

As I find out more I’ll keep you in the loop.  Stay tuned.

Posted by: Steve Banis