“Wait, you’re playing Pac-Man?”

Sam Harrelson on January 12, 2021

We finished up with our science lesson this morning and sat down at the kitchen table for a snack. This is usually when the five-year-old has “tablet time” (we’re not the type of parents that abides by the “Screen Time!” mantra or severely restricts device usage…).

As I was putting snacks out, I noticed he was playing Pac-Man. PAC-MAN. “Wait, you’re playing Pac-Man?” I asked in that sort of parental stunned manner that even a five-year-old recognizes as a question that warranted an immediate response. “What is Pac-Man?” he responded. I’d loaded a few classic games on his tablet a few weeks ago but didn’t think he’d necessarily take to any of them just yet.

“You’re playing it!” I said. “Oh, he said… I call it Bubble-Eater.” Fair enough.

I sat down and we enjoyed some Pac-Man together. He’s almost better than I was as a middle schooler emptying quarters into the Pac-Man machine at our local skating rink on a Friday night. It’s been a while.

This all makes me reflect on how we often put emphasis on things that really don’t matter in our marketing. Our son doesn’t care about the name “Pac-Man” but enjoys the experience, the music, and the sound effects. If you’re of a certain age, you can close your eyes and imagine those sound effects right now.

Often when I’m working with clients on a new project, there will be unlimited amounts of time and energy spent on seemingly massive details that in the end only matter to the actual organization (or more often, specific committee members).

In reality, it’s the sound effects that stick with people and transcend generations. Focus on the details that matter and not the ones that you think matter. “I know my business better than anyone” is often the death knell of a marketing campaign.

Don Jr’s Site is on Shopify

Sam Harrelson on January 9, 2021

Donald Trump Jr is tweeting about how “big tech” is cracking down on “free speech” after his father was booted from Twitter, FB, IG, YouTube etc over the last few days as a result of the Jan 6 terrorist attack on our nation’s Capitol.

Not good marketing

What’s interesting here is that Trump Jr is using Shopify to sell books and bulk up his newsletter subscriptions after Shopify moved to also ban Trump-related sites this week:

Shopify does not tolerate actions that incite violence. Based on recent events, we have determined that the actions by President Donald J. Trump violate our Acceptable Use Policy, which prohibits promotion or support of organizations, platforms or people that threaten or condone violence to further a cause,” a Shopify spokesperson wrote in a statement to TechCrunch. “As a result, we have terminated stores affiliated with President Trump.

Shopify statement

Regardless of your politics of late, I urge you to build on your own property. Own your own domain, own your own intellectual property, own your own content, and don’t rely on third party providers to host your digital presence, one of your most important assets.

Marketing to Your Own Beliefs

Sam Harrelson on December 24, 2020

I get these sorts of questions frequently from new clients:

“Why aren’t my Facebook Page posts getting more likes?”

“Why isn’t my website getting more views?”

“How can I let more people know I’ve written / made / created / offer the best service / product in my area?”

“When will people start responding to the emails I’m sending them about our product / church service / nonprofit fundraising?”

“What is the best way to market this because what I’ve done hasn’t worked so far?”

After being in the marketing world for almost 20 years now, these are among the most common questions I get from people just beginning to take marketing seriously (and have hired me to help them realize that vision).

We’ve all asked ourselves similar questions after the initial excitement of an idea has faded away due to the lack of engagement from everyone else who didn’t respond the way we wanted.

But that’s the beauty of marketing… it’s a system of nuance and subtleness and not a blunt tool. It’s not meant to “convert” (that’s sales) as much as “persuade” … and that takes extra effort and thinking outside of our own heads. Some do that with data. Some do that with incredible gut instincts.

Nonetheless, don’t fall into the trap of letting your own perspectives dictate all of your marketing efforts…

The dilemma for my boss, for me and for you – as humans – is that it’s very difficult to admit that you were wrong, or even stupid. It’s is the last thing someone will admit. The alternative is, instead of believing the evidence, you double down on your initial belief – belief perseverance – and say it’s the other person who’s wrong.

Source: Cognitive dissonance, conmen and cults: The ways marketers delude themselves

The Economics of Mask Wearing

Sam Harrelson on December 2, 2020

For the last 18 or so years that I’ve been in marketing, I’ve used “democratization” and “community focus” as consistent buzzwords in both my consulting work as well as speaking at conferences etc.

I don’t think there’s any better example as to why those terms are important than the experience of living through 2020. Specialization is everything as people are looking for a community in new ways online to replace the in-person human element we all miss.

Regardless of whether we are able to have in-person gatherings again soon and not have to worry about the virus, things have changed for many of us and there are new habits and norms (Zoom and hyper-special media isn’t going away) that will not be going away. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to be wearing a mask for a while.

One key I’m pushing with all of my clients is the idea of specialization in community building. As marketers, we’ve generally done a poor job of handling “community building” correctly. There has been too much focus on affinity metrics, KPI’s and NPS (Net Promotor Score) that has resulted in insulting generic surveys when we happen to purchase anything from dog bowl from a pet’s store all the way to a car. “TELL US HOW WE DID!” is now one of the least clicked email subject lines in our inboxes.

Engagement, authentic presence, customer service, and democratization of the message are very important. But “generic” is a poison pill. Choose wisely in your messaging in 2021.

Top Posts of the Teens

Sam Harrelson on January 6, 2020

I started writing email newsletters in 2002 and blogging in 2003 for a couple of marketing outlets. I was mowing the lawn on October 13, 2006, and had the bright idea to start a marketing blog called CostPerNews. It took off rather quickly and before I knew it, I was getting citations on Techmeme and flown around to speak at various marketing and tech conferences. Part of that adventure was luck and hitting the blogging scene at just the right moment and part of it was the time and energy it took to write 3-5 posts a day about the various aspects of marketing I was covering.

Around that same time, I decided to use this samharrelson.com domain for my personal blog to journal and capture ideas and observations. Of course, it never had the same impact as CostPerNews, but it does continue to draw a not-insignificant amount of traffic each month.

Things really changed in the early 2010s as we moved from blogs to “social” media. I championed Twitter heavily back in 2006-2008 as an addition to what blogs had become and thought the platform would continue to amplify self-hosted personal sites and become a real discovery engine. What I hoped for is that personal and business blogs would bloom and platforms such as Twitter, Tumblr (RIP), and Facebook would be traffic drivers to those destinations. Boy, was I wrong. Worse, I gave in and started using those sites instead of this space for my personal thoughts and observations. You can see that in the chart above that shows the number of posts I’ve made here since 2006.

I’ve always had grand thoughts of doing away with my Twitter and Facebook accounts as primary places of content production and focusing here.

I’m taking that seriously in 2020. I’m not abandoning FB or Twitter (as I did Instagram last year), but I am using this as my primary hub.

On that note, let’s take a look back at the Top 10 posts from 2010-2020 here on the blog based on site traffic:

It looks like 2016 was definitely a bright spot for the blog here. I had made a concerted effort to stop giving so much content to the advertising-driven social networks and remind myself that I had space here that needed me. As I look back on the last 10 years and thousands of posts, I’m equally reminded of that realization. And excited.

It’s good to be back. Let’s see if we can do 1,000 here in 2020.

Mailchimp Rebrand

Sam Harrelson on September 26, 2018

They’re based in Atlanta…

The email marketing company Mailchimp, which today is announcing a complete rebrand, could have easily given up the quirkiness that defined its branding as a young company the way many other giants have. Instead, with the help of branding agency Collins, Mailchimp is doubling down. It’s keeping its logo-cum-mascot Freddie the Chimp, for starters, and using an analog typeface from the 1920s as its new wordmark, and illustrating its new brand with a series of almost childlike drawings that look unpolished and rough by design. Weird branding is alive and well in Silicon Valley.

Source: Mailchimp rebrands as an anti-tech company

 

Owning your own platform is important, and valuable

Sam Harrelson on May 21, 2018

I often get the question from clients of why I mostly recommend having your own website on WordPress or a self-hosted platform in the age of Facebook. As companies who built their businesses and traffic flow on the back of Facebook over the years have found out, that can be a very precarious decision. Audience and perceived impact are good, but long-term value is much better. Don’t cheap out and build your house on someone else’s property.

For instance, Medium is an interesting platform for bloggers and writers. We see everyone from politicians to celebrities to tech pundits using it as the place of record for their writings. While there is an audience there, or on Facebook, we’re already seeing Medium making changes to the way it handles its publishers in an attempt to figure out monetization (something which its founder Ev Williams knows about since he also founded Blogger and then went on to co-start Twitter… both of which faced their own monetization issues). This is going to be a constant and something you or your business or your non-profit should take notice of before you let your roots get too deep in a particular platform can change its EULA at any time.

Owen Williams writes the excellent Charged newsletter (you should subscribe) and makes this point about Medium, Facebook, and web presence in general that I highly agree with:

All of this is to say: Medium is great, but be wary! Owning your own platform is important, and valuable, even at this point in the internet’s maturity cycle. It’s a bit more work, but you are no longer at the mercy of the platform, a lesson we can learn from Facebook all too easily.

Source: #167: Medium.com feels like it’s forever. What if it isn’t?

Nonprofits, the smartphone, Facebook, and Google

Sam Harrelson on December 18, 2017

Interesting thoughts here from the NY Times CEO on how they are shifting focus in relationship to Facebook and Google due to the smartphone revolution … much of this applies to how nonprofits and churches can do better marketing as well:

It’s about how you think about the product and what you’re trying to do and what is the value you’re giving to users. The areas of weakness in the publishing industry have been not having an audience strategy or sufficient brain space to think about how you serve your audience. It’s very easy to get tracked into assumptions about who your audience is. In legacy media, journalistic parameters were set by the geographical limitations. [The smartphone] changes everything. You need to reinvent journalism from the ground up with this device in mind, and then try and figure out what you’re going to do on a laptop and the physical newspaper.

via ‘Facebook is not transparent:’ NY Times CEO Mark Thompson says the platform’s role needs to be clearer – Digiday

Your logo and Instagram content

Sam Harrelson on September 19, 2017

Good advice to consider here, particularly for nonprofits and churches on slimmer marketing budgets looking to make the most impact possible on social media…

What about content that doesn’t show a clear logo? What about companies with unbranded or non-logoed products? We’ve seen that a huge percentage of the content shared and posted on Pinterest is logo-free. It’s important to go beyond the logo to get the whole story of an image—how brand content is shared over time, who has shared that content and who has influence in getting it shared

via Brands Must Look Beyond the Logo to See the Big Picture – Adweek

What Does Your Brand Do?

Sam Harrelson on September 11, 2017

Longevity and repetition are two of the hardest to use tools in a marketer’s toolbox, but also the most effective.

via Marketing at millennials won’t save your tired brand | The Drum

There are definitely some points in this post that I disagree with (importance of having a “famous” brand and working towards that being a goal for your organization for one), but this sentence did stick out to me as something that I need to emphasize with our clients more often.

We do lots of “strategic consulting” with non-profits and businesses that don’t necessarily have a large budget for branding considerations. It’s something that often gets overlooked in the process of thinking through a marketing plan. That can easily be seen by the poor quality of logos and branding material that most local or regional non-profits have. But these things can be done well on a tight budget.

As the economy has shifted and nonprofits (especially) are facing slimmer traditional sources of donations there, concepts such as “what does your logo tell people about your group, business or non-profit?” become valuable barometers for improvement whether you’re trying to sell a product or solicit a donation.

You don’t need to have a quality Nike swoosh or Apple apple or Coke wordmark to be successful, but thinking through what you’re presenting and what you’re trying to “do” with your logo, fonts, colors, and brand messaging can make a world of difference when done well.