The Chaffey College Effect

I live about a block from a popular community college. For years, it’s always been the same; traffic really picks up during the first week or two of classes. Its parking lots are full to the brim, and students are forced to park their cars on a residential street, forming a quarter mile long line.

By mid term everything is back to normal and the streets are once again quiet. I liken it to free breakfast day at Denney’s. Once the promotion is over the lines disappear, and only the real customers return.

Yes, there’s a huge universe of possible customers for your business. How many, though, are in it for the long term? Would you see that customer beyond the coupon or price promotion? Is he taking advantage of what only you can do clearly better than the rest? Or do you only hear from from her due to transient convenience factors and lack of other choices?

Much is said about gaining more customers. But it’s relatively easy to do that in the short term. Yet a real business depends on real customers, meaning customers that are truly devoted to your cause. Is that the kind of business you have?

Parade of the Fads

In harsh economic times, it’s tempting to hop on the bandwagon and try cashing in on the fad of the month. It’s rarely a paying bet. By the time you’re firmly seated, the wagon has gone way past the bank.

Case in point: The regrettable 2005 decision of TV Station KTLA to trade in venerable Rose Parade host Stephanie Edwards for a younger model. That year we Angelinos all watched our beloved Stephanie get soaked in the rain while her less capable replacement bumbled her way through the broadcast in a warm, dry booth.

The gambit: new is better than old.

Taken another way, it’s a marketer’s lack of respect for her/his customers. It’s telling your customers: “you’re not smart enough to know better.”

That’s a strategy that can backfire, and frequently does. Did you know anyone who wasn’t at least a bit tweaked by the Rose Parade fiasco? It made parade fans of all ages mad as hell, myself included.

If there’s a lesson, maybe it’s this: any long-lived business model involves respecting your clients and their ability to decipher your value equation. It’s about appealing to your customers highest values, and steering way clear of the lowest common denominator.

Remember the reign of Krispy Kreme? Is Heidi’s Yogurt still around anywhere? What’s the shelf life of a TV reality show? Fads lack substance; their perceived value is low. They devalue the market.

Innovation sounds new, though the insightful, virtuosic thinking behind innovative ideas has been around for ages. So have truly great journalists, like Stephanie. It’s just that you don’t find them on every corner.

Organic Marketing Part 2: What’s Your Story?

It must have been the 1960s. Still, I can still remember the agony of my junior high history class. It was a mind numbing succession of dates, names and places. The teacher, who may have been old enough to have been present at the signing of the Mayflower Compact, spoke in a monotone drawl that could induce a state of stupor within seconds. I slept.

Where was the torment of the wrenching decision by handful of patriots that declared indendence from Britain? Where was the gripping oratory of John Adams?  Where was the story of sacrifice and hardship of Abigail Adams, and the eloquence of Thomas Jefferson’s pen? Why did my classmates have to endure a year that was filled with so little, when America’s history is teeming with gripping stories just waiting to be told.

If you’d like to learn how to write copy for your next newsletter or direct mail letter, just watch HBO. Rent a DVD of John Adams and enter the world of our early patriots. Fear, passion, anger, suffering, laughter and joy; the full scope of human emotion. Tell a real story, and capture the minds of your listeners. It’s genetically coded in the human race.

So much of what arrives in a mailbox these days is devoid of anything a living breathing human being can relate to. Postcards and brochures are often no more interesting than a supermarket shopping list. Newsletters: thinly disguised billboards. Web pages: just add liquid and you’ve got your own website in 30 minutes or less. Nice to look at, but no substance.

Is it any wonder that high and low, folks are clamoring: “stop the spam?”

Our lives are filed with stories. Turn your senses in their direction. Be it lawn service or Attorney at Law, you’ve got a story to tell. People will listen.