The Chameleon - Adaptive Marketing Ideas For Your Business

This is the biggest week of the year in the triathlon world. KONA!

What is Kona? It is the home of The Ironman World Championship. The best triathletes - both pro and amateur - will compete in arguably the hardest single event in one of the most brutal locations. To understand just how tough this race is let's start at the beginning. A triathlon is a single race where you swim, then bike, and then run. The distances range from a "Sprint" all the way up to the "Iron" distance. An Ironman consists of:

• 2.4 mile swim
• 112 mile bike
• 26.2 mile run

Without stopping! Now imagine traveling 140.6 miles under your own power in one of the hottest, most humid, and windiest places on earth. Boom - that's Kona. This is not the best spectator sport, especially if you aren't a triathlete yourself. It's looooonnnnggggggg. Most of the pros finish around 9 hours, where mere mortals average about 12 hours. 

Groundhog Day is once again upon us. If you live in the Northeast, my guess is that you are hoping Punxsutawney Phil predicts an early Spring. Whether you believe in Phil's magical powers or not, Groundhog Day is a symbol of folklore in American culture. Not only has this tradition been carried on for over 100 years, it also inspires popular culture.

Recently, I find myself having a very similar conversation with many of our clients surrounding the topic of blogs so I figured, what better place to discuss the how-to’s of blogging, than in a blog!

Since posting this morning, GoDaddy pulled their puppy commercial from Sunday's rotation.  Click here for the full story.

If you’ve been living under a rock trying to recover from the chaos of the holidays, or if “Deflategate” is the only thing filling up your news feed these days, then let me bring you up to speed.  This weekend marks one of the biggest showdowns all year…the fight to see who reigns supreme until this time next year.  I am, of course, talking about the competition for best Super Bowl Commercial, which let’s be honest, is the only reason some people even tune in Sunday. This year, I am eagerly anticipating the debut of GoDaddy’s Puppy commercial, but not for reasons you may think.

Imagine this…you arrive at the airport, with just enough incredibly productive time before your next flight. You head off to your gate, only to receive a call from the airline letting you know your gate moved, so you keep on trekking.  You sit down, plug-in, and hone in on your to-do list.  Fingers flying across the keys, head softly nodding to the ever-present music in your headphones, when BOOM…everything around you goes dark and the dreaded battery low indicator starts flashing again! 

With marketing, there is almost never one correct answer. Most times, what works for one company may not work exactly the same for another company - even in the same industry. There is certainly a try-test-adapt-try again methodology. Notice I said almost. If you are a professional, then listen up because your LinkedIn profile image may need help! There is really only one correct answer on what your profile image should be. It should be a clean, professional headshot of you. Period. This is one of the few times there is not another answer.

I recently had coffee with a friend to chat through a work problem:  his boss kept showing up to potentially lucrative account pitches in a rumpled suit two sizes too large and Crocs.  We’ve all heard the phrase “put your best foot forward” or “suit up” and unless the industry dictates it, a Crocs-clad foot is certainly not subscribing to those theories.  In today’s virtual society, donning your power suit is no less important, although the application is slightly different:  your social media wears the power suit these days!

Since Thanksgiving is quickly approaching, we are hyper focused on giving thanks, but let’s not forget about the important of saying thank you the other 363 days of the year, especially if you are a business.  As a company, you are constantly promoting your product or service through the use of your website, emails, or social media, but just “being on social” or sending emails isn’t enough.  You have to interact, especially when your customers are talking to you or about you.

My pro tip for all you businesses out there: say thank you!! If I like a product or have a great customer service experience, I like to talk about it and share it with my friends and followers.  I am not an extremist so I won’t completely stop using that product or service, but if a company doesn’t tweet back, favorite or otherwise interact with my comment, I will not recommend them, either online or in-person.  However, if a company does interact, I feel like the most important person in the world at that moment in time and I tell everybody! To ensure I am not alone, I spoke with others who agree and actually made purchase decisions recently based on whether or not their social media “family” spoke highly of the company's customer interaction satisfaction.

Small Business Saturday (Nov 29th) is almost here! This is a great opportunity for local businesses to attract customers and even band together with other local firms. While there are a lot of way to maximize your exposure for this event, many of them need advanced planning. So, if you have put off planning until now, but still want to maximize your exposure, here is one way to make the most of SBS. 

As a relative newbie to the world of Twitter, I didn’t want to actually look like a newbie so I asked questions, performed Google searches, and even skimmed a book or two for advice.  Yes I am a bit of a nerd, but guess what…you benefit, so here is the most powerful tip I discovered: