Employees

How cause marketing can be smart marketing

September 30, 2014

In the last 20 years, the term “cause marketing” came onto the horizon.

The whole idea was this: Many companies donate their time, their talent and their money to various charities, but it was done without anyone knowing about it or the company gaining any additional value from being a good citizen.

Some would argue that to give without any expectation of reward or recognition is the true definition of giving.

Perhaps that’s true. But it’s also very small.

Another word for small in this instance might be isolated. If I give five dollars to a charity and don’t tell anyone about it, the charity gets five dollars and I get a warm feeling inside. All good. But if I tell my friends about the charity and that I’m giving five dollars and invite them to do the same, now look at that I’ve created:

• More awareness for the charity
• Additional dollars donated to the charity
• A community of people who believe in/care about the charity

Which do you think the charity would prefer?

Now, take that a step further. Rather than just telling my friends about it, what if I aligned my choice of charity with my customer base? Odds are I serve a group of people that I have a connection with and that I care about.

So if I look for a charity that would be important to them and to me, I can amplify the impact I can bring to the charity by engaging my entire customer base to rally around them.

When anyone talks about cause marketing, one of the examples they use is Avon and their commitment to fight breast cancer. They were pioneering in the idea of uniting a cause and a group of customers, for a greater good.

We’re all smart enough to recognize that Avon benefits from this alliance as well, in earned media exposure, creating a powerful connection to both their female customer base and their female employee base as well as increased sales.

None of that mitigates the good they do. It’s truly a win/win situation. Here’s how Avon talks about their efforts on their own website:

“One of the company’s largest ongoing projects is the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade, which is aimed at funding research and access to quality care. Now in its 20th year, the project has donated more than $740 million to the cause, making it one of the world’s leading corporate supporters of the fight against breast cancer. Among the successes that Avon lists on its website:

• Linking more than 15 million women around the globe to early detection programs and mammography screenings
• Educating 100 million women on breast health
• Expanding into 55 countries
• Enabling access to care for underserved populations
• Providing $175 million to breast cancer research projects since 1999
• Creating Love/Avon Army of Women, a program designed to accelerate the pace of prevention research by enlisting more than 350,000 women (potential study volunteers) for this effort.

Avon fundraises for these efforts through various methods like hosting the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer series and selling Crusade Pink Ribbon fundraising products.”

I know your company probably doesn’t have the reach of an Avon, but you do have loyal customers who care about the world around them. And I’ll bet there’s a charity or cause that matters to you and that would matter to them if you made the introduction.

As you work on your 2015 marketing plan – I challenge you to weave in a cause marketing effort. There’s nothing that says marketing can’t also make the world a better place.

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5 tips for creating a company culture that connects with your sweet spot clients

September 25, 2014

An area of marketing that is often overlooked is how important it is to be mindful when creating a company culture. You don’t build a culture to make a sale. But the culture you build, if you’re very clear about your organization’s values and beliefs, can translate your company’s personality and attract right fit prospects. It can also reinforce your current customers’ buying decision.

Company culture doesn’t just happen. If you want it to really flourish, you need to make it a priority for your business. You need to build/strengthen the foundation of your culture and then nurture its growth from there.

The challenging aspect of corporate culture, of course, is that culture is shaped by the workforce. Which means it’s an ever-evolving entity. As employees come and go, the culture can be altered in ways that don’t benefit the employees or the organization.

Your culture is too valuable not to protect. Here are a few ways you can ensure that your culture has a consistent foundation that doesn’t ebb and flow over time. If the core is rock solid, then it’s okay if the details shift a little.  Ready to start creating a company culture? Keep these tips in mind.

Create a manifesto: Don’t hide your culture. Celebrate it. Capturing the essence of your culture in a statement of beliefs or manifesto will allow you to articulate the key values and behaviors that you want to protect.

Put it in your employee handbook, create a beautiful framed version and hang it proudly in your corporate office and read it out loud to kick off each year’s first staff meeting. You could even ask new hires to sign a commitment to honoring the manifesto on their first day of work.

Weave the culture’s core values into your job descriptions and review process: Employees know that if something is important enough to be a part of their annual review, then it must be pretty important to the company. You can reinforce your culture by rewarding your employees for keeping it alive.

It’s also a built in culture training program for new employees. If they know they’ll be held accountable to their job description when review time comes along, they’re much more likely to adopt those wanted behaviors.

Make your staff part of the solution: If you teach your employees how your company culture contributes to the success of the organization and then invite them to help you protect it, they’ll gladly accept the challenge.

Why not a team that is charged with bringing the culture to life through employee events, customer interactions and rewards programs? They’ll probably surprise you with their innovative ideas and enthusiasm.

Hire for culture, train for skills: Identify the attitudes and behaviors that best support your company’s culture and hire for those traits. You can teach skills but you can’t teach attitude. It’s much easier for a new hire to fit into an environment that aligns with his or her own personal beliefs. Trying to force a square peg into a round hole puts a great deal of stress on both the organization and the new employee.

Share the vision: The purpose of a company culture is to support the organization as it marches towards its future. One way to help the employees understand the importance of protecting and building the culture is by sharing the desired end result.

Once they share the vision, they’ll be inspired to guard everything that will help you all achieve that vision. If anything, they will strengthen your culture to help you get there even faster.

Your culture matters every day. Purposefully creating a company culture will help you recruit and retain your best talent. It supports how you deliver excellence to your customers and it is a compass that guides you towards even greater successes. Be sure you protect it like the valuable asset that it is.

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Promote Yourself

September 5, 2013

When I first heard the title of Dan Schawbel‘s new book — Promote Yourself (The actual full title is Promote Yourself: The New Rules for Career Success) I thought, uh oh…another how to use social media to get in the spotlight book. But knowing Dan, I should have known better.

Instead of a re-tread on an already tired topic, Dan’s very fresh message is “Hey Millennial — the future is yours if you want it — but don’t think it’s going to get handed to you.” He then outlines how these young professionals need to take charge of their career and make sure “the future has your name on it.”

He encourages his readers (and honestly while his advice is aimed at those born between 1982 – 1993, it’s perfectly applicable to professionals of all ages) to rely on a mix of technical, interpersonal and social media skills. He suggests, and I believe he’s correct, that it’s the hard skills that will get you the job but the soft or interpersonal skills that will get you the promotion.

He says “Hard skills are what will help you navigate the technical elements of your job, but it’s soft skills that will enable you to move ahead.”

Keep in mind that in today’s corporate world, company culture and company ethics are getting more and more important. Skills like being a good communicator, trustworthy and empathetic matter. Especially when sizing up candidates for a possible promotion. When everyone you’re competing with has the same hard skills are you do — how are you going to stand out?

Dan offers up six rules of self promotion that everyone should jot down:

• Make yourself worth being talked about
• Be well-known for one specific thing
• Take responsibility
• Find ways to expand your role
• Make others look good – especially your manager
• Get some evangelists

I am hardly a millennial. And I’ve been in the workplace for a very long time and at this point, I’m the only one who can promote me. But Dan’s book had some great reminders for me too. Whether you’re 20 or been on the job for 20 years — this is a worthwhile read. (click here to buy the book on Amazon*)

As I always try to do — I asked Dan my book author questions and here’s what he had to say:

If you had to describe the content of your book in a single sentence (no run ons) what would it be?

A book that pushes people to be accountable for their own careers and take charge of their lives.

What one book that you’ve read do you wish you could claim as your own?

Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success by Adam M. Grant.

In your opinion, what is the one trait that all uber successful business people possess?

They are willing to put the effort every single day in order to turn their dreams into reality.

What’s the biggest business mistake you’ve ever made and what did you learn from it?

The biggest mistake I’ve made was that I rushed into trying to get a second book deal after the first one came out. I learned that I need to be more patient and to not only think bigger, but take the time to make something even more successful before I jump into a new project.

Why did you have to write this book?  What truth or insight was missing from the human consciousness — that you’ve now answered?

The question I answered in this book is “how do I get ahead at work?” When I started writing it, the idea was it would contain the feedback that employees didn’t receive at work, straight from the managers who have the power to promote them or not.

After someone is done reading your book — what do you hope they do as a result?

I hope they take at least one recommendation in the book and act on it. It would be great to see a revival of work ethic out there and for more people to take risks in their careers.

*Affiliate link

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So you want a career in advertising?

May 21, 2013

I was recently contacted by a college student who asked if he could interview me for one of this classes.  One of the questions he asked is one I get a lot, so I thought I’d share my answer with you here.

If you aspire to be in our business — I hope it helps.  If you’re already in the business — what did I miss?

What advice would you give to anyone who was aspiring to enter the field of advertising?

Yikes… there are lots of things to know but here are some of the biggies.

• You cannot do it alone so surround yourself with really smart, good-hearted people who you can count on.
• The day you stop learning is the day you begin to become irrelevant. There is always more to learn.
• Before anyone will give you their business, they need to know you care about them/their company.
• When you make a mistake (and you will make a ton) be very quick to call attention to it, own it and work like a dog to fix it. And never forget to say I’m sorry.
• If you help other people whenever you can, when you need help – there will be someone there to offer it.
• There’s nothing wrong with making money. Don’t be ashamed to charge what you are worth.
• Owning your own business means that when times are tough, everyone gets paid but you. So be very smart about not overspending your money and build up a nest egg for those tough times.
• The smartest person in the room is not the one who knows all the answers. It’s the person who asks the best questions.

When I hire, I don’t worry too much about the degree the person has or things like grade point averages. I can teach them about marketing but I can’t make them honest or hard working.

I look for people who have a passion for helping other people. I hire people who volunteer their time, have a passion for a cause and instead of whining about it – do something about it.

I definitely want good writers, no matter what position they might fill. In today’s business world, with email etc. – everyone needs to be able to communicate clearly and be well spoken, both in face-to-face encounters and in writing.

I also look for someone who gets that our business is not 9-5 and isn’t going to freak out if they have to work late or over a weekend. Our business is very demanding and depending on what’s going on with our clients, we can put in some incredibly long, grueling weeks.

I also want someone who is willing to do “grunt” work. In a small agency, everyone pitches in and does what it takes to get the job done. If I can stuff envelopes or whatever – so can they.

I want someone who is a self-starter, a lifelong learner, a reader, someone who is funny, ethical and someone who resonates with our company’s core beliefs, which are:

• Passion cannot be ignored.
• Breakthrough thinking breeds breakthrough creative.
• The guys in the white hats do win.
• We take our work seriously. Ourselves, not so much.

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Why your brand is dead in the water

August 14, 2012

Here’s how most brand evolve.  The organization’s leadership huddles up at a corporate retreat (or if it’s a start-up, around the kitchen table) and decide on a tagline and maybe a logo.

The tagline becomes the battle cry of the brand and they’re off to the races.

Or worse yet…the organization hires an agency who claims to “do branding” and after a little deliberation, the ads have the new tagline and logo and voila, the brand is launched.

Fast forward 6 months or maybe a year.  The tagline and the brand are limping along.  No one really uses them anymore.  And if they do, they think of it as the “theme of the month” and assume it will just go away over time.  And it does.

There are many reasons why a brand fails….but the biggest one in my opinion is that the employees are not properly engaged and connected to the brand.  Without a huge investment of time, energy and some money — the brand remains a superficial cloak that can easily be pulled off or shrugged off when it gets to be a challenge.

Your employees are the key to a brand’s long term success.  It’s that simple.

When we are asked to develop a brand for a client, we require the step we have dubbed “seeding the brand” which is the whole idea of introducing the brand promise to the employees and letting them take ownership of it — deciding how to deliver the promise, how to remove the barriers to keeping the promise and how to keep the brand alive inside the organization.

If a client won’t agree to implementing that stage of the process, we won’t do their brand work.  No ifs, ands or buts. Why? Because it won’t work without that step. And I don’t believe we should take their money if we can’t deliver success.

Discovering and then building a brand takes a village.  And you have to start by including your own villagers.

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The Google Yourself Challenge

July 30, 2012

Forget egosurfing for a second and ask yourself, how much can people learn about you by simply Googling you?

The idea behind the Google Yourself Challenge is this: friends, relatives, recruiters, hiring managers, and even strangers may be searching for you on the web.  Why not Google yourself first and control what people can learn about you online?

Here are some statistics on who is looking for your data:

• 81% of millennials Google or Facebook their date before going out
• 79% of recuiters and hiring managers screen applicants by information available online
• 86% of hiring managers have rejected someone based on information available online
• 7 in 10 internet users search online for information about others

Check out some of these stats in this infographic…and then go Google yourself.  (And your employees, employer, parents and kids!) You might be surprised at how much Google (and everyone else) knows about you!

From: BackgroundCheck.org

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What are the digital jobs of the future?

February 27, 2012

What digital talent will be in demand down the road?

Wondering where the marketing and digital marketing jobs will be down the road?

Look no further than this chart.

As you can see, content creators/writers are in huge demand right now.  With the push to creating quality content, I don’t suspect this need will diminish any time soon.

I’m pleased and relieved to see that strategic planning/thinking is still in demand as well.  I worry that too many companies will leap without looking simply because digital/social is easy and/or cheap.  It doesn’t matter how fast you can climb a ladder if you’ve propped it against the wrong building.

Whether you’re a college student trying to decide how to direct your studies, a marketing professional thinking about course corrections or you’re responsible for hiring within your agency or corporation — this is your future.  Better introduce yourself.

Note: This chart is part of the 2012 edition of The SoDA Report, from the Society of Digital Agencies.*

*If you haven’t heard of SoDA — the Society of Digital Agencies was created five years ago to advance the industry through best practices, education and advocacy. Their membership is made up of digital agencies and production companies throughout the world, on five continents in 24 countries.

They also have a Peer Collaboration Group program with 350 members across 12 disciplines.

For the last four years, they’ve done this research and produced the SoDA report. (click here to download the entire 96 page 2012 report)

In terms of who participate in the research: 53% of the participants were marketers representing corporate brands (25%), consumer brands (30%) and other related industries (45%). The remaining 47% were creative service leaders from traditional agencies (23%), digital agencies (64%) and production companies (13%).

Over 76% of respondents were key decision makers and influencers (CMOs, senior executives, VPs and directors) with annual marketing budgets ranging from under US$1M to over US$100M and whose key markets are North America (57%), Europe (19%) and APAC (11%).

 

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How do you communicate with your team?

April 28, 2011

…How’s your employee communication?

We’ve talked before about the importance of recognizing your employees as a very important audience for your business. You need them to all be pulling in the same direction. But like any audience — you have to decide what are your key messages to them — and how do you deliver them.  Over and over.  They’ll need some repetition so the key points can really sink in.

Employee communication is probably an area that every team leader or boss could improve.  (think I’m wrong — ask your team!) I’m curious — how do you communicate with your team (or how does your boss communicate with you?)

Have you tried any of these?

Ask Them

GOOD — Employee surveys: Don’t even bother asking their opinion, if you aren’t going to act on what you learn.  The good news about employee surveys is that the anonymity is likely to get you feedback that’s more candid.  And if you have a big crew, it’s probably the only way to get a fair representation.

BETTER — A scheduled chat: What, if instead of the formal survey, you carved out a set time every week and you, throughout the course of the year, met with everyone individually and picked their brain a little, while sharing your vision and thoughts?

Tell Them

GOOD — An all staff meeting: The plus of this is that everyone hears the same message and can ask questions, watch other’s reactions and participate as a group.  The down side of this is — someone always misses the meeting and if you have multiple locations across multiple time zones — tough to coordinate.

BETTER — Regular messages from leadership: Whether it’s an internal intranet/blog, a monthly video from the CEO, a weekly wrap up e-mail from the team leader — I think in this case, frequency wins.  If your team knows they’re going to hear from you on a regular basis, they’ll be more confident that they’re in the know.

Bonus points to you if you give them feedback avenues. Which is the perfect segue to…

Listen to Them

GOOD — The tried and true suggestion box: Whether you literally have suggestion boxes throughout the office or you use an electronic version, giving your employees a chance to speak up/out with ideas, questions, concerns etc. is a good start.  But some pumps need priming.

BETTER — Involve them: Are there some big financial goals you want to hit?  Put together a task force and ask them to help you create the plan.  Need ideas for holiday gifts for clients — pull together 3-4 people and give them the assignment.  Want to improve your recruiting efforts?  Why not put together a blend of young/old, new/seasoned employees and ask them why they took the job, what they love about the job and how you could improve the working conditions, etc.

Everyone works better and harder when they believe they are contributing.  So the best way to listen is to ask…and then implement!

This is one of my personal goals — to get better and better at being plugged into what my employees are thinking, doing, wondering about and tapping their insights to make MMG an even better place to work and do business with.

How about you?  Do you do any of the above?  Have any other suggestions to share?

 

 

 

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Advice for finding that first marketing job

April 6, 2011

How to find that first job

It’s spring time, which means the robins, tree buds and soon to be college graduates are all popping up everywhere.

I remember how tough it was to find that first job.  Everyone wanted you to have experience but no one wanted to give you that first job…so you’d get some experience!

I am often asked by college students how they can compete in a sea of “I did an internship, I got good grades, my parents are pressuring me to find a job” applicants out there.

So…for all you soon to be and recent grads — here’s my counsel (from the MMG website).

If I were you and I wanted to snare a job at MMG, here are some of the things I would and wouldn’t do. (and naturally, this applies for any job, just substitute the company specifics.  And, I’d replicate this for the 3-5 places you really, really want to work.)

I would:

• Read the MMG website carefully, to get a sense of culture and tone.  Be sure this sounds like a good fit for you.  I know you need a job — but your first job is so important.  You’ll meet your first mentor there.  Or not.
• Sign up to receive MMG’s weekly e-newsletter, the Marketing Minute.
• Stay smart — keep reading advertising, marketing and social media blogs, magazines etc.  You’re going to do this for your entire life — so you’d better get in the habit now.
• Follow MMG on their Facebook page and Twitter.
• Read Drew’s blog and if I really want to stand out from the pack, I would subscribe (via e-mail or RSS reader) and within a week, make an insightful, articulate comment on a post.
• Ask my friends, contacts etc. if anyone knows anyone at MMG who could make an introduction.
• Be very mindful that my cover letter/resume are the biggest demonstration of whether or not I get marketing.  I would ask myself…if I were a product and MMG was the target audience…how would I sell me?  How would I make myself different from all the other applicants?
• Download and read “Giving College Grads a Fighting Chance.”
• If I have a blog, I’d link to Drew’s because I know he’ll check to see who I am.
• Know that they’re going to check my Twitter, MySpace, Facebook etc. pages.  So if they need cleaning up, I’d clean them up.
• If I had no relevant job experience, I would look at the job experience I did have and figure out what elements of marketing were present there.
• Join the local social media club, ad club, marketing club.  Whichever is more relevant to what you love to do and your market.  But start getting connected, if you haven’t already.
• If I didn’t get the job or they didn’t have any openings at the moment, but still think this is the place for me…I would stay engaged.  I would keep reading/commenting on the blog.  I’d drop them a note every month or so.  I would become someone they notice/know.

I would not:

• Send a cover letter or resume that even slightly reads like everyone else’s.
• Rely on any cover letter/resume book. I would throw those away and refer back to my marketing text books.
• Under any circumstances tout my ability to work with people (or that I like them) as a strength or skill.
• Send anything that a pair (or two) of fresh eyes didn’t proof.  A typo will get me tossed right into the “no way” pile.
• Hit send or lick the envelope until I checked and double checked the spelling of the agency, the agency owner’s name and anything else (like their clients) that I might reference.  (see bullet point above)
• Try to BS my way in.  Because I should expect that MMG will smell that a mile away and ask about it until I admit that I sent the same “I believe your agency is perfect for me” cover letter to 12 agencies.
• Humiliate myself. I would double check that I put the right cover letter/resume in the right envelope.  (I’d hate to be the one who makes that mistake, but it has happened.)
• If I really wanted to work there, I wouldn’t give up.  I wouldn’t be a stalker, but I would keep at it.  I would look for ways to help them, even before I got a job there.  Because I would believe that I am going to work there eventually and begin behaving like I already do.

You don’t have to do any of this.  It’s your job hunt, after all.

But remember, at MMG (and most smart businesses) we hire as much for “culture fit” as we do for competency.  We can teach you marketing.  But we can’t teach you to be a team player.  Or curious.  Or passionate about our work & our clients.   We’re not going to force you to be someone who believes in giving  back to the community.

So along with your work and academic achievements, show us that stuff.  And show us that you get why that matters.   Then, we have something to talk about.

Your job is pretty straight-forward.  If you’re smart and creative enough to sell us you, we know you can help our clients.

Good luck!

 

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Your employees = your 24/7 news source

February 14, 2011

Everyone’s a publisher today

In the “good old days” you could control the messages generated by your company and about your company.  Your CEO might be quoted in the newspaper or interviewed on TV.  You had a corporate brochure or maybe an annual report.

However word got out — it had the company’s seal of approval on it.  Not today.  Today, the kid who comes in for 10 hours a week to help with inventory or answer the phones is as likely to be a spokesperson as the well-versed CEO.

Actually, in fairness, that’s always been the case.  Employees have always talked about their employer, the work they do, etc.  But now, thanks to digital publishing, social media and technology — instead of talking around their dinner table to 3 other people, a single Facebook post or blog entry could go viral and be exposed to millions in a matter of hours.

As I said in my last post — this is not cause for breathing into a paper bag.  It’s actually good news.  Here’s how to harness the buzz your employees can create for you:

Keep them plugged in: No one likes to be kept in the dark.  Talk to your people.  Don’t just tell them about the past — share your vision for the future.  Show them prototypes or the new delivery model.  Keep them informed.  Be clear about what is and is not for public consumption but be willing to share all the news, not just the good news.  Be honest.  Be ready to answer some tough questions.  Be real.

Listen: Don’t just talk.  Ask their opinion.  Seek their ideas.  Ask them to help you monitor what customers are saying about your brand.  Tap into their insights and instincts.  They may be more plugged into the social media tools than you are.  So ask them how to best connect with your customers.

Set clear expectations: Be very clear about how you would like them to use social media in terms of your organization.  I’ve said this before — but soon every company will have a social media policy, just like we all adopted sexual harassment policies 20 years ago.  (Here are some excellent social media policy examples)  Define your boundaries and the consequences for breaching them.

Celebrate them doing it well: If you have an employee who is really using their social media clout to serve a customer, sing your praises, answer consumer questions, recruit new team members — shout it out.  Thank them publicly and use their behavior as a model to teach other employees.

This is one of those — lemon or lemonade kinds of choices.  Your employees aren’t going to disconnect any time soon.  So why not recognize the opportunity of having every single employee out there, talking about your organization and the work you do?

If that idea frightens you — you’d better ask yourself why.  My guess is, it has little to do with the employees.

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