He’d traded up to a massive new bike from what he called his “learning bike.”  He wasn’t comfortable on it anymore as he was moving on to longer rides.  He needed comfort.  And didn’t want to continue to build confidence while gaining experience with his existing classic.

His friend’s wisdom – “yeah, learning is never comfortable.”

The story reminds me of what so many business owners must be feeling.  As technology influences customer mindsets and the ways they spend their time, owners and executives are forced to learn new behaviors. Learning means change – if only in the way you think.  And change is stressful.

Learning makes you venture into the unknown, pushing you out of your comfort zone.  But you know what can be even more uncomfortable?  Losing customers.  Missing opportunities.  Losing money.

A business that allocates a certain amount of its resources to testing new marketing methods and learning what works will lead the field when the economy ultimately recovers – and will maintain and extend its lead over time.

Got learning?

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.

Did you know that Albany is the #1 test market in the United States.  Correct-a-mundo.

According to Acxiom’s  last published study in 2004, Albany, NY was the market that best represented the United States population as a whole.

In other words – we’re the most average market in America.

That holds some real advantages for you as a marketer – especially if you market to consumers.  Rolling out new mass-market products in Albany is an excellent place to start.  The test results could well translate to the national market, and “amped-up” ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment)

If that’s you – be thankful we’re so average.

The pursuit of perfection costs money…lots of money.  And the ROI on perfection is minuscule.

I was listening to an interview with a psychiatrist specializing in neurotic behaviors when she began discussing “pack rats.”  You know, people with an obsession to keep everything they’ve ever accumulated.  She described a case study wherein two brothers accumulated so much, and their surroundings became so cluttered – chokingly packed really – that they perished among the debris.

Pack rats are irrationally afraid that they might throw away something important.  They fear they might miss something.  It’s part of what the doctor called “the pathology of perfection.”

We often encounter clients with degrees of this pathology.

Usually it manifests in a such a microscopic attention to detail that they never actually do anything except proofread, wordsmith, scour lists, debate nuance, etc – even after a painstaking effort has already been completed.  They simply won’t sign off on a project to begin.

They believe that they are demanding perfection, when in actuality they are nearly guaranteeing failure.  Like any investment, marketing your business is a calculated endeavor.  It begins with a series of informed decisions, but no guarantees.  A program is begun, results observed, adjustments made.

Professional marketing management requires ongoing adjustments.  By definition, therefore, perfection is unachievable.  And the closer a program is to its inception – the farther away from perfection it will be.

Demanding perfection at the outset will only paralyze a launch.  Then, should a marketing adviser be able to convince a client to launch in spite of a client’s fears, the inevitable failures (that’s right, I said failures) of an early stage marketing plan may cause a client to get angry.  Deliver a series of “I told you so” and force a campaign shutdown.

This exactly at the moment that learning has first begun.

A mentor of mine often reminded me that failure is but one step closer to success.  Perhaps you’ve heard this old adage as well.  Being 50, 60, 70, or 80% correct at the start of a campaign is a fair beginning on the road to success.  The costs of trying to move too quickly from 50% to 80% are exponential.  It can create unending research, tension, delays, mistakes, loss of enthusiasm, paranoia and other negativity – often resulting in total loss.

Perfectionists will fail without ever knowing how close they may have come to reaching their goals.

Some business owners have reported an increase in productive conversations with potential new clients.  New business is being booked.  There is a small semblance of a smile forming at the corners of their mouths.

After many months (for some a couple of years) of absolutely no response to their marketing efforts there are signs of renewed life.  We’ve heard from one owner that has seen results from a small marketing effort – he seems to think that he can handle the new inquiries for now and then do a little more marketing, handle those new inquiries, and so on.

Our message to him…don’t get cocky.

Yes, customers are placing orders to catch up for those that have long been on hold.  The spending freeze over the past 18 – 24 months has led to some initial catch up business for those that have survived.

What happens when those purchases are finished?

Well, the normal marketing and sales cycle kicks back in, but with a longer time line.  We’re certainly nowhere near being out of the woods.

Marketing success cannot be achieved by turning the spigot on and off in spurts.  If you hooked your marketing effort up to a heart rate monitor, it should look something like a normal sinus rhythm.  Steady, steady, steady, pulse.  Steady, steady, steady, pulse.

This thaw is the signal that prospects are at least somewhat willing to listen.  And its your signal to warm up, approach the starting blocks and begin to jog.

The competition for your attention is in full swing…and it’s survival of the fittest.  Getting to the top of the pile has always been a challenge for direct marketers, no more so than now when time is at such a premium.

No, direct mail is not dead.  Far from it.  One client of our drops over 4 million pieces of mail each year and generates a very healthy ROI, thank you very much.

There are a number of tactics you can use to improve the response of your direct mail program.  Lead among them is the use of variable print data.  Enabled by technology, personalized messages can be created on each piece by pulling information from your database.

Research shows that mail with your name on it, along with a relevant message, generates a significantly higher response rate than those without it.  The additional costs of variable printing can be highly justified by the higher returns generated.

Does it makes sense for you?  Calculations depend on a number of factors including -

- What is the value of an individual sale?
- What has it cost you in the past to generate a qualified lead?
- What other elements are included in your communications mix?

Direct mail is a highly measurable form of lead generation.  Testing the effect of variable printing is a matter of organizing and tracking the effort properly.

Of course, there is no real replacement for personal, face-to-face interaction.  But as  cost-consciousness replaces the niceties, online interactivity is on its way to mainstream.

Some still have their doubts.  We’ve heard strong protests saying that people won’t feel comfortable discussing personal or confidential information this way.

To those who still have such doubts, consider this research excepted from mediacenteronline.com publication “Trends 2010.”

[from Trends 2010; mediacenteronline.com]

The growing demand for real-time interactions will result in more than just clones of Twitter-like-services expected to hit the Web in 2010.  Many of the most interesting and out-of-the-box innovations that will impact lives during the next  year include:

Online funerals. While webcasting a funeral may seem morbid, Funeralrecording.com and Funeralone.com are starting to gain attention because the services allow more people to share in the ceremony without the expense of travel.

Life-casting. Given the integration of cell phones, high-speed 3G services, and a growing desire to connect with people in more tangible ways, life-casting services such as Qik.com will allow users to easily stream live, quality videos from their mobile phones in real-time.

Video gaming gets physical. Taking lessons from the popular Wii, Microsoft’s new Xbox controller is the user. Called “Kinect”, players can perform dance movies or kick a ball, while a camera tracks the movements and shows the results on screen. Sony’s new PlayStation Motion Controller features a wand that helps accomplish the same person-as-the-controller goal.

Content aggregated. Digg.com and other services help web surfers find interesting stories and pictures and YouTube.com allows people to share videos. Toobla.com aggregates videos, photos, documents and Websites, to store and share them online, making content more interesting and accessible for others in a person’s network.

Gadgets for gadgets. The earlier versions of cell-phone boosters were disappointing, but the zBoost ONE, which increases connection three bars, will allow people in rural areas to participate in the mobile revolution and make high-speed access viable for everyone.

He’s a retired physician with an inquiring mind and he shared with me an unsettling observation.  Watching coverage of the tragedy in Haiti, he recognized that people got more and more desperate as it passed the 3 day mark following the event.

The human body can go without food for quite some time before it really breaks down.  But without water, it’s only a matter of 72 hours and brain function is significantly affected.

“9 meals”, he said, “that’s all that separates us from our daily lives and a complete breakdown of society.”

Hours later, while working on a marketing blueprint, I thought about my cousin’s “9 meals” anecdote.  Our bodies need to be sustained with a continuous supply of H2O for survival.  We need food for sure, but in terms of our hierarchy of needs, water is king.

What’s your client’s hierarchy of needs?  What’s the one thing that your customers can’t live without?

Price?  Service?  The hottest technology?  Relationship chemistry?

Now think about it in terms of a marketing campaign.

What’s the one thing you need to monitor to know if you’re on the right track?  It’s different for everyone.

Regardless, it’s a fine line between survival and extinction.  Be sure you know where it is.

You’re cranking out that report right on deadline…in the flow as it were.  Focusing on capturing your best work, you plow through until its done.  Then you lean back, satisfied.  One more look see for typos and spelling errors and then print and deliver.

You hit print, enter and then….nothing.  Frozen.  It’s OK though, just reboot and you’ll print it after it fires up.

Panic!

You were so focused on pumping out the words, that you forgot one little thing….SAVE.

If you hit restart, it’s gone…

All the stages of grief begin to flow…shock, anger, sadness, and finally…resignation.  You’re going to have to start over.

How do you think your customer feels when suddenly the “server” goes down?  When service stops.

Sure the economy stinks – and you need every customer you can get.  So how can a company afford to stop marketing for new customers, especially in a downturn.

How can they afford to lay off customer service personnel…or those long-time staff who know the company inside and out – and have relationships with all the key customers?

The answer…can’t afford it – gotta survive.

OK.  So as their competitor, what does this mean to you?

It sets up a unique opportunity…but it takes some foresight and guts.  In other words – leadership.  The first companies to restore top-notch service and aggressive marketing will pick up customers as they return to the market.

Is it time for you to reboot?

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.