You know how to get snow to stick to the ground really well?

Make it really, really cold. And keep it really cold for a long time.

Your sales and marketing tactics are like a snowstorm. No matter how ferocious your blizzard is, your strategy will not stick unless you’ve prepared the ground. You gotta keep it cold enough long enough so that your customer is willing enough to let your storm turn to beauty.

If you don’t prepare the ground, you’re wasting money with every flake that melts.

Here’s how to make it cold: Say the right things in the right ways. The “right things” are the things your customers care about. The “right ways” are ways that are a) surprising enough to get attention, and b) beautiful enough to earn credibility.

(Can you feel the B.S. meter going up these days?… it’s not just how you say it, it’s what you say.)

Here’s how to keep it cold: Say the right things in the right ways over and over and over again.

How do you know the right things to say? Ask. Ask your customers. Ask your sales people. Ask Wordswell to help you.

How do you know the right ways to say them? Ask. Ask your customers. Ask your sales people. Ask Wordswell to help you.

How do you say them over and over and over again? Strategize. Ask Wordswell to help you.

We define brand development as “telling the truth about who you are, faster.” But we should also add “…for the long haul.”

As soon as you change your set of promises, you start the freezing process over again. It’s ok to do that. Just be patient, like the last time.

brrrrrr.

brody

P.S. Wordswell loves to do brand assessments where we research your “stuff”. How good is your message and your media tools? What are your competitors doing? But really, all that only helps to assess the main questions:

• Do your customers know the promises your making?
• Do those promises matter to your customer?
• Do your customers believe that you can deliver on those promises?

Ultimately, do your customers/members/donors/stakeholders know you? Trust you? Advocate for you?

If so, great! Let’s run with that. If not, great! Let’s fix that.

Prices start at various four-figure amounts. Start 2010 with a Wordswell Brand Assessment.

We’ve been learning and experimenting (ok, playing) with Foursquare recently.

What’s Foursquare?

Basically, every time you go somewhere – your favorite restaurant, coffee shop, office, gym, appointment (anywhere that’s a destination) – you “check in” as being there. Typically, this works best with a GPS-enabled mobile device like an iPhone.

For instance, last night a friend, my wife, and I go out to dinner at Holy Frijoles, a Mexican restaurant in Hampden, Baltimore. When we get there, I launch Foursquare on my iPhone, it locates my position, and gives some probable options for where I am. I check in at Holy Frijoles, and voilà, the world knows where I am:

“I’m at Holy Frijoles (908 W 36th St, @ Elm Ave, Baltimore). http://bit.ly/3QuNYy“

Of course, my friends on Foursquare get notified about this (often through a text message, if they have that feature turned on). But my Foursquare updates are linked to my Twitter account. My Twitter updates are linked to my Facebook account. Soon, and through a one-click process, I’ve told my entire circle of influence where I am.

Great… another tool for over-sharing, right? Not so fast…

What happens if I went to Holy Frijoles every week? What happens if I went there so often that Foursquare claimed that I was the “Mayor” of Holy Frijoles? What happens if someone else wanted to chase that crown and started eating there more? What happens if I was proud of my position and started eating there even more to keep my title?

What happens if there was an incentive for the Mayor of Holy Frijoles? You’d be surprized what I’d do for a free margarita.

Meanwhile, everytime we’re “checking in” at Holy Frijoles, we’re personally vouching for that brand visibly through our entire networks on Foursqure, Twitter, and Facebook. Talk about word-of-mouth advertising (the free kind). Wow!

But what’s this whole business about being a “Mayor”? Basically, Foursquare keeps track of what you do, when you do it, etc. There are different point values you earn by doing certain tasks. For instance, if you go to a gym enough times in a month, you earn the badge “Gym Rat”. If you go to you gym enough, you’ll soon be the Mayor of the gym. For more information on this points system, Mayors, and badges, check out Foursquare’s web site.

Foursquare is a developing platform. The number of titles and badges available to earn is certain to grow. It’s a game. But it can be played (and won) by anyone – including your customers.

Now the question is, how is your organization going to become a prize?

Wordswell can help you coordinate a plan Foursquare for your business as part of a larger social media strategy. Drop us a line any time.

Your Brand is a Promise
So, how do you get into the tiny decision-making window of your customer or member? Your brand has to “Starbucks” them. When you say “Choose me,” you are making a promise to your audience that you won’t let them down.

As customers/deciders, we need brands to help us make our decisions. We buy based on our emotional attachment to a brand.

Quick Thoughts
Ideas about branding are vast, but take these to the bank. Your brand is:

• greater than the sum of its parts: Every aspect of your organization is your brand. Your brand is not just your colors and logo. These merely serve as visual cues to help customers remember your true brand and differentiate you. Instead, the way your employees act, the way you answer your phones, the cleanliness of your restrooms, your perceived value – that’s your promise, your brand.

• personal: In addition to “buying billboards”, brands are now having conversations. Technology and social media are opening the doors here. More than ever, brands have personalities like people, and we are asking, “Is he reliable? Is he authentic?”

• foundational: Your brand drives everything you do as an organization, internally and externally. It informs hiring, pricing, decor, and management. And it is certainly the base for all communication, PR, and marketing.

• a promise.

Before you spend another day and another dime on “marketing” yourself, take a look at your brand. Wordswell can help if you need it.

Don’t be a commodity,
Brody

Comments, stories, or advice? Please share!>>

Mr. Tweet, a site for helping you network on Twitter, recently published a story in their blog about a coffee shop in Houston, TX that used Twitter to almost double their business:

Twitter To Go: How one local coffee shop used Twitter to double their clientele. What’s YOUR story?

It’s short, so read it if you like learning about this sort of thing.

Here’s the point of the article: building your brand is about caring for your customer. Using Twitter and other social media allows you to identify yourself by way of communication with clients and prospects (two-way communication, that is). Talk about branding!

Social media is emerging. A lot can be said for its success, its confusion, its vastness, and, most certainly, its potential. (Did you know that Facebook may soon become more popular than Google?) If you have any stories of success or failure using social media, please leave them in the comments section. If you want more insight into this world, drop us a line at Wordswell.

Wordswell is here to help you kick doors open.

Chances are you have some idea, message, business, or vision that needs to be heard.

But, chances are it’s not moving people. Sometimes it’s trapped because:

• people haven’t heard you
• they may have heard you, but your idea doesn’t mean anything to them
• you know there’s technology out there, but you can’t get it to effectively tell your story
• you don’t have the time, energy, or resources to get your message out there

Each of those is a closed door. Wordswell is here to help you kick them open.

The marriage of innovative strategy, clear writing, and potent ideas with polished design, sweet websites, and alluring media and technology (e.g. film, email newsletters, and social media) is how Wordswell makes your message grow legs and get running.

Top-to-bottom consistency makes Wordswell’s approach more effective than a “field of silos” marketing effort. A Wordswell project is infused with strategic, results-based, compelling, and practical solutions. We call it message creation.

Message creation when ideas matter. Here’s the fun part: it’s your ideas that matter. We’re here for you.

Let’s kick open a door,
Brody