Video marketing: Here's the Noodle


One of the big trends in marketing today is telling your story on video, largely because video has such an ability to convey the rational and the emotional elements of a story.  Here’s my video book trailer for my new book, “Be the Noodle,” produced by First Priority Media.

More about the book can be found here. I’m just filled with so much gratitude about the response to the book. Clearly people have been looking for a book where “inspire, wisdom, and humor” are linked with end of life and dying. A big outpouring of thanks goes to Justin Evans, partner of the Montreal design firm Stress Limit Design, who created an extraordinary cover. And of course, my remarkable family. Together we can do so much, except for the singing thing.

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The viral effect: positive, awe-inspiring stories

cause Ripple

Just what causes a story to go viral?  New York Times Science writer John Tierney reports today on a new in-depth University of Pennsylvania study  that found:

  • People share articles that inspire awe
  • Positive stores are more likely to be shared than negative
  • More emotional stories are emailed more often
  • Stories about anxiety travel, but no where close to those that inspire awe

Having done my own studies on what people like to share and the power of meaning making (Beyond Buzz, 2007), I found this new study  validating and insightful — especially learning more about what the heck is awe inspiring.

The UPenn researchers used two criteria for an “awe inspiring story”: the scale of the story is large and it requires the reader to see the world in a different way.

The researchers also found that people like to share awe-inspiring stories not to impress others, but to realize a type of “emotional communion.”

Emotion in general leads to transmission, and awe is a strong emotion,” said Dr. Jonah Berger of UPenn. ” If I’ve just read this story that changes the way I understand the world and myself, I want to talk to others about what it means. I want to proselytize and share the feeling of awe. If you read the article and feel the same emotion, it will bring us closer together.”

One of my most popular blog posts over the past few years  had nothing to do with marketing but was about an awe-inspiring 18 hours in an urban hospital emergency room. The resulting comments, calls and emails created an extraordinary emotional communion with friends and strangers.

Three weeks ago I finished writing a new book about an awe-inspiring journey. It was the most fulfilling writing I’ve ever done, and it’s the marketing project I’m most eager to get moving. Why?  There’s nothing more satisfying than emotional communion, and the buzz that goes with it.

Good lessons for all we marketers who  too often rely on a heavy-on-the-logic, light-on-the- emotion style of business communications.  To realize the powerful possibilities of social media our content needs to be emotional and show what’s possible.

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A word of mouth story based on fear

I love spreading word of mouth about things that are remarkable. But last week a small restaurant tried shut me down in my efforts to do so.

Whenever I go to San Francisco I schedule my business calendar so that I can have breakfast at Boulette’s Larder in the Ferry Building. The food is extraordinary, the restaurant  design remarkable. So while waiting for my breakfast I took out my Droid to snap a couple of photos to share with you.  Because no words can quite capture the beauty of this small little space.

After the click, owner and renowned chef Amaryll Schwertner came over and asked me to stop taking photos immediately. It was against her policy.

“But why,” I asked. “I wrote a book about word of mouth and like to spread the word about great experiences, and photos are a great way to do that.”

“We’ve had a lot of problems with people taking photographs and stealing our ideas,” she explained. “Photographs of our restaurant have ended up in places without our permission. We need to control who takes photos.”

The exchange left me cold and wondering. Just what could anyone “steal” by taking a picture of a  little restaurant?  A restaurant’s assets are its food, its service, and its vibe. How can one steal that total experience in a one-dimensional photo?

And why be fearful of letting people take a picture and spread word of mouth, the most vital marketing for a restaurant. Sure, my photos aren’t professional but I doubt I would hurt the restaurant’s image.

My advice for all businesses and Boulette’s Larder is to let go of  fear, and let people who love you spread the love, especially with photos. The greater the love, the less likely that any negative remarks or pirate photos will ever hurt your reputation.

Here’s a photo of the restaurant taken from Boulette’s web page. I hope I don’t get reprimanded again. :)

BoulettesLarderjpeg

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If you think your company is boring…

TreesLookUp

‘Tis the season for marketing planning, which can be painful if you’re in a rut. From many years of experience I believe every company has remarkable ideas to talk about, but finding those ideas can sometimes be challenging.

This week I talked at the Word of Mouth Supergenius conference about how to shake things up and find those ideas. Thanks to Merritt Colaizzi of SmartBlog on Social Media for her post that sums up those ideas. You can find it here.

Finding those interesting ideas to talk about is well worth the work. Consider:

  • What do sales reps to say to engage prospects?
  • What makes your proposals and RFPs stand out?
  • Social media only works if you have interesting ideas to talk about
  • How do CEOs get employees’ attention?

To get more interest, you have to be more interesting.  It doesn’t mean you have to be cool like Apple. In fact, much of my work has been with “boring” B2B companies.  Everything in marketing and sales gets much easier when you find the “talkable” ideas.

If you get stuck, call me to help jump start your thinking. If your company is really stuck, let’s do a workshop in 2010  to uncover those amazing ideas just waiting to be found.  While I am slightly biased, this is the best marketing investment you can make next year.

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A CEO's Twitter advice

smiley face JPEGMost companies tell employees what NOT to Tweet about, but Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com, suggests to employees that they Tweet about these three things:

  1. What will cause my followers to smile
  2. What will enrich people’s perspective
  3. What will inspire

Thanks to Hollie Delaney of Zappos.com, for sharing this yesterday during out social media session at The Conference Board conference on extending your brand to employees. Thanks too to the other super-smart and generous panelists — Marietta Cozzi of Prudential Financial, Kat Drum of Starbucks, and Kelle Thompson of Liberty Mutual.

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Non-profit marketing with simple video

This is a great example of how a non-profit can use a simple video to tell a story in a way that makes people want to donate to the cause. Also, check out The Girl Effect web site, also simple and effective.

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Employee attitude matters more than advertising

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Companies spend so much on acquiring new customers, hiring the best talent possible, taking chances on innovative marketing concepts. But engaging employees often seems to a stepchild, loved, but in a less passionate way.

Given the influence of employees on customer loyalty, maybe the priorities need to be altered. At yesterday’s Conference Board conference Engelina Jaspers, HP’s vice president of corporate marketing, shared three stats that can help focus management’s attention on employee engagement:

  1. 68 % of customers leave a company because of poor employee attitude
  2. 41% of customers are loyal because of good employee attitude
  3. 70% of brand perception determined by experiences with people from the company

Brian Ray of McDonald’s is quantifying the value of committed employees in revenue and profitability for McDonald’s owners/operators. (85% of McDonald’s are franchises), and has just completed an project to create an employee value proposition.

(So interesting that every company seems to have a customer value proposition and mission, but not so for employees.)

To develop this “EVP” McDonald’s spent just $65,000 and asked two simple questions, which got an amazing 79% response rate from frontline workers in 33 countries:

  • What do you love about working for McDonald’s?
  • What do you love the least about working for McDonald’s?

What do your employees love the most and least about your company?  These two simple questions asked at least annually can provide the insights you need to understand how to make your employees your best marketing advocates.

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Did PETCO kill the squirrel?

Bird feederHere is  our birdfeeder, with no birds, not even the pesky squirrel who does contortions to break into the feeder. You see we bought a new bag of   the PETCO Black Oil Sunflower Seed  and the animals disappeared. No fighting over the perch, no annoying squirrel hogging the feeder.

Alarmed, my husband cleaned the feeder and thoroughly checked the yard for any weird growing berries or other vegetation that could be deterring the animals. But nothing. Pretty sure that the birdseed was contaminated  he emailed  PETCO Customer Relations, and they wrote back:

Unfortunately, there has been no information provided to us regarding any issue with the PETCO Black Oil Sunflower Seed. You may want to check if there’s something different with the bag that you recently purchased compared to those you have purchased before…You may also want to contact the manufacturer, Kaytee, regarding your inquiry.

Why would PETCO refer us to  the manufacturer when it was a PETCO branded product?  Why wouldn’t they ask for more details about our purchase so they could track possible contaminated shipments in our geographic area? Why wouldn’t PETCO apologize and tell us to return it to the retailer for another product?  If they looked at my husband’s purchasing history — he has one of those PETCO PALS loyalty cards — they’d see just how steady and profitable a customer he has been over the past 10 years.

The lack of PETCO interest so turned off my husband that he switched to a competitor, PetSmart, and tells all of his animal-loving friends about this story. Talk about word of mouth marketing.

The marketing lesson is this:  customer service is more important and valuable than any advertising.  It creates positive or in this case, negative, word of mouth.  Yet for many companies customer service is not part of marketing.

Advertising, promotion and CRM loyalty programs report to marketing, but not customer service?  In today’s social media world where the good and bad travel fast, that’s just for the birds.

Our bird friends are returning after a month away from the feeder.   But no squirrel. We think he may have died from the tainted birdseed.

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How to be a word of mouth supergenius

So much of social media is word of mouth marketing. But I fear folks are overlooking what it takes  to get people talking about your product, your company, your services.

On December  16 I’ll be speaking at: Word of Mouth Supergenius: The “How to be Great at Word of Mouth Marketing” Conference in Chicago.  The one-day agenda includes 12 how-to classes, 12 real-world case studies, and 6 word of mouth authors — including moi.

If interested in going   apply the coupon code “Loisismyhero” to get $101 off registration. Hope to see you there.

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More egoboo

“How should we incent people to participate in our online community or be our word of mouth ambassadors?” clients frequently ask.

Forget money, give them egoboo.

Not the game Egoboo, but egoboo, derived from ego boost, which people get from seeing their name in “lights” and getting recognition for what they have to say.

According to Wikipedia, egoboo originated from science fiction fandom around 1947:

As a reliable way for someone to get their name in print was to do something worth mentioning, it became caught up with the idea of voluntary community participation. As a result of this, in later years, the term grew to mean something akin to an ephemeral currency, e.g., “I got a lot of egoboo for editing that newsletter.”The term later spread into the open source programming movement, where the concept of non-monetary reward from community response is a key motive for many of the participants.

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