Safety is the Riskiest Marketing Strategy in 2010

Why? Because everyone is attention deficit today – with too little time available and too much competing for what time is available.  There’s simply so much noise all around us, we’ve been forced to filter most everything out in order to get anything done.

It used to be that all you had to do was find a market need, develop a great product and advertise it to your target market.  That’s the safe strategy – and it no longer works in 2010 (and it didn’t work in 2009 either).  There’s simply too much noise for broadcast signals to penetrate.

Today, you need a Big Idea that’s so extremely remarkable that it actually feels risky to use in order to get noticed…

Marketing Signal-to-Noise

When I was 12 years old, I got my amateur radio license and first learned about the concept of the “signal-to-noise ratio”, which applies here.  Signal-to-noise ratio is defined as the ratio of a signal’s power to the noise power corrupting that signal.  A ratio higher than 1:1 indicates more signal than noise.

In less technical terms, signal-to-noise ratio compares the level of a desired signal (such as your marketing message ) to the level of background noise. The higher the ratio, the less obtrusive the background noise is and more likely your signal will get through.

In the past, we could simply turn up the signal level to break through the noise by running more ads, sending more emails, saturating the market with our message.  And as everyone became more efficient at this, the noise became unbearable, so people found ways to “tune out”, treating virtually everything as noise because it’s simply too much.

Break Through by being Extremely Remarkable

To break through today actually requires a completely different strategy – you must be “extremely remarkable”. When you are extremely remarkable, what you have to say rises above the noise and gets noticed, because it gets passed onto people directly from others they know, listen to and trust.

Seth Godin talked about the need to be remarkable to get noticed.  Today, you must go a step further.  You must be extremely remarkable.  Instead of a single Purple Cow standing in the field, you need a small herd of Purple Cows – and some of them need to break through the fence and graze by the roadside – then you will get noticed.

In a world where everyone knows they must stand out, you must become more extreme about your differentiation – and when you do this, it will feel very risky – hence, the title of this post.

Stand Out or Stand Down

In 2010, you need a Big Idea that’s extremely remarkable. When you have a big idea that’s extremely remarkable and different, it provides enough weight to break through the signal-to-noise barriers and get repeated – by email, on Twitter, on Facebook, in the blogosphere and by word of mouth.

Delight, Surprise and Amaze

Nobody talks about having their needs met anymore. Do you tell people how great your daily commute was? Of course not. It’s boring. It’s painful. And it’s normal. How about your favorite toothpaste? How about what you had for dinner last night?

Do you tell people about the latest movie you watched and how much you liked it? Of course you do. It’s interesting. It’s pleasurable. And it’s remarkable. How about your favorite TV show? What browser you prefer to use?

The movie Avatar is breaking all kinds of movie records right now. Why? Because it’s extremely remarkable – much more so than any other recent movie we’ve seen. And it keeps getting talked about (this is a case in point), which creates the social proof for it to garner more adoption – not only by the mainstream movie goers, but also by many of the movie laggards (who usually just wait for movies to come out on DVD and NetFlix).

Does Your Marketing Feel Safe or Risky?

As David Meerman Scott is fond of saying, it’s time to “Lose Control of our Marketing“.  Find a Big Idea that’s extremely remarkable and resonates and you’re message will take off and surf its way to success riding the social network waves. Don’t be afraid to let go and take that risk.

Unfortunately, many marketing departments want control of all aspects of the company’s messaging – and they see blogs and Twitter as undermining that control.  It’s amazing, but that sentiment actually still exists here in 2010 at some companies! (yes, I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true).

Turn your employees loose and encourage them to blog, to Tweet and create YouTube videos. And don’t ask your marketing department to review and approve them. Let your marketing get out of control…

Encourage people to take more risks – to become edgy and stop worrying about what people might think. And consider using multiple edgy messages that appeal to different groups of buyers – not a single, watered-down message intended for everyone (that resonates with nobody).

And if employees do somehow “go too far”, don’t smack them down for it…because everyone must learn how far is far enough to be on the edge without falling in.

People are afraid of losing their jobs today, because they’re not sure they could find another one right now.  This fear doesn’t help you become edgier with your marketing. Give people the “safety net” of knowing that unless they post something vulgar or repulsive, they can’t go too far.

And if they do somehow go too far, be explicit that the worst that will happen is they’ll be asked to delete the offending post, learn from it and keep on going faster than ever…

That’s how you can get breakthrough performance, not just in your marketing, but in your business in general – remove the perceived risks and make it safe for people to take calculated risks right now.

Here’s a true story and example of what I mean. When I was with CITRIX in 2006, a blogger named Brian Madden wrote this post that sent shock waves through the ranks of senior management (something Brian did on a regular basis, as I recall).

Some weeks later, the company’s CEO wrote an internal memo to all employees, outlining the company’s new, official blogging policy and encouraging people to start blogging. Within a few months, several blogging platforms emerged and blogging was underway and ramping up.

The point here is that the leader’s memo and official blogging policy acted as a “safety net” for its employees to put themselves out there and a catalyst to start blogging. Prior to an official policy statement, people worried about what would happen should they accidentally blog about something considered internal, non-public information (and apparently some who had tried to blog before the official policy had received negative feedback, so everyone stopped).

Due to the official company blogging policy, transparency has improved drastically and there’s now a healthy, thriving community connecting the company, its customers and other ecosystem members known as the Citrix Community.

Bloggers who care and speak up like Brian did can and do make a huge difference, as Brian did for CITRIX back then. Brian knows where the edges are, and he’s definitely not afraid to go there.  In fact, he’s built his site and a nice business on it!

So, are you taking the SAFE road or the RISKY one in your marketing for 2010? Do you have an official blogging policy and Tweeting policy?  Are your employees actively blogging and Tweeting about what’s going on?  Are they plugged into the conversations going on in your market?  Have you encouraged them to find the edges and go there no matter what?

And is your marketing extremely remarkable, so it will get noticed, resonate and get repeated efficiently?

I hope so!  It’s the only way your message is going to break through, replicate and move the needle for you in 2010 and beyond.

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The truth is, today Twitter only enables us to reach a tiny fraction of a typical market (unless it’s the Twitter market itself).  The reality is that Twitter is just one of many “canvassing tools” that should be used for launching a product, website, or company, as shown in the diagram below.

Here’s an excerpt from the New Rules of Launch, How to Launch a Product, Company or anything else via the Internet covering use of Twitter (and other social media like Facebook and the launch blog):

Twitter is a social networking tool that’s great at getting the word out about your launch and for attracting prospects to join and promote your launch.  However, Twitter is just one element of a proper launch strategy, as shown in the launch canvassing big picture here:

Twitter is one of the available social media venues for canvassing the market and targeting specific buyers.  It’s also a key part of staying in touch with your launch community throughout the pre-launch and launch stages.

At the time of this writing, I like to use Twellow.com to locate prospects in the target market. Twellow searches Twitter profile “bios”, which people use to describe themselves.  TweepSearch.com is another bio search tool (it’s in Beta currently and seems to be up and down right now).

The bio search is a great way to find people who describe themselves as in your target market; e.g., if you’re selling to CIO’s of IT shops, then search for “CIO”, or ”hiker” and “camper” if those activities are your target, or “VP Marketing” and “CMO” if you’re targeting upper management in marketing departments.

You then “Follow” each of the people in your target market using Twitter.  Be sure to make several useful, interesting Twitter posts before inviting people to follow you on Twitter.  Most people will “Follow” you back (if they’re active, valid Twitter prospects).  Then LISTEN to what your market and potential buyers have to say… and then engage in the conversation with them and LEARN…

Then you can invite people to your launch in the usual ways – by giving them useful, free content and offering them the opportunity to register for the launch on the launch landing page.

Remember that Twitter users are not always online following you, so you will need to repeat yourself once or twice a day (at most) to ensure maximum coverage.  Importantly, on Twitter, you need to attract lots of “ReTweets” to increase your exposure.  If enough people retweet your tweets, you can reach tens of thousands of people very quickly.

There are plenty of articles available on ways to get people to retweet. use Google to search “get more retweets” to learn more:  http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=getting+more+retweets&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

Also, Twitter is a great way to locate and develop a relationship with key influencers in your market, again using TweepSearch.  I also use Google to locate influential bloggers, then locate them on Twitter from there.  You will need to build rapport with these influencers and develop a basic relationship with these folks, before asking them to assist you.

If your launch and product are newsworthy and relevant, bloggers will likely want to break the news to their audience.  Be prepared to give them free access to your product so they can do an independent review.  These people are busy, so you should begin this process far enough in advance of your launch to provide yourself enough time.

Twitter and Facebook are good places to supplement email notifications throughout your pre-launch and launch sequences.  They are also great places to locate affiliates and other launch partners to support your launch.

Your blog is the “hub” of your launch content publishing and delivery strategy.  Your blog is where everyone can find the “table of contents” for your launch – the list of posts; i.e., all of your important launch content, including informational posts, videos, recorded teleconferences, articles, etc.  Importantly, it’s also where everyone can see direct social proof, in terms of tweet counts and comments made by those in your launch community.

You should be using a “Tweet” tool on your blog that displays the number of tweets and make it easy for others to tweet your blog entries to their followers.  You can see an example of this on my blog here (and most anyone’s blog who is in the know today).  This is an extremely powerful tool for creating visible social proof.

Of course, in order for people to want to share your blog entries with others by tweeting, it must be “tweet-worthy” (if that’s not a word, it should be).  Your blog entries generally must be passionate, relevant and stir an emotional response to get tweeted (or to get comments for that matter).

And to get read in the first place, your blog entries must begin with great headlines based on a “killer hook”.  This blog entry provides 14 ways to develop killer headlines and hooks:  http://www.winningware.com/killerhooks

Hopefully by now it’s clear why the Big Idea (discussed in the New Rules of Launch) underpinning your launch is so important.  If your big idea doesn’t resonate, it will not garner the attention required to get people to spread the word about it.  In order to make effective use of social media to spread the word about your launch, the big idea must be:

• Remarkable – so that people want to share it with their friends and follows
• Newsworthy – so that people want to be recognized for bringing the news to their friends and followers
• Relevant – so that it’s worth everyone’s time and attention.

By now it should be crystal clear that unless you’re launching the next Apple iPhone or Harry Potter movie with major brand equity with an established market base, your big idea is what’s going to give your launch and message the weight required to carry it throughout the market.

If your big idea resonates, it will get repeated and spread.  If it falls flat, nobody will care, it won’t get repeated and your launch will be a dud.  It’s a simple as that, so make sure you get the big idea right (like we discussed in the New Rules of Launch, by testing and validating it early on).

So Twitter is a great launch tool, but just one arrow in your launch quiver.  Learn to aim and shoot this launch arrow well, and you’ll reach more influencers and buyers in your target market, providing lift and reach for your launch.

And that’s the truth about using Twitter in product launches today.

To read more about the New Rules of Launch and how these rules will enable you to launch anything via the Internet and achieve maximum results at the lowest cost, download the free e-book here.

So, what are your thoughts on and experience using Twitter for launches?

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• The 3C’s of Product Launch (1)
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• Why Safety is Risky Business in 2010 (13)
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• Top 5 Product Launch Success Factors (and Pitfalls to avoid) (10)
• The all-important Launch Blog – Some tips for your success (7)
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