The three “R”s…

Recently Cory Treffiletti, president and managing partner for Catalyst SF, wrote a quick article on the three “R”s of marketing, and got things back to basics.

To go over them real quick they are; recency, resonance and relevance.

Recency is the amount of time that passed since the last time your particular target market saw or heard from you. Resonance is how you rang in their ear…did you make an impressino? Did you get their attention?

And then relevance…were you what they were looking for? If not at that time, now? Do you still have relevance in their mind?

A lot of times we think everyone should have what we’ve got to offer, and forget that a return on customer is a constant changing or adapting to what your customer or client needs at that time.

I was asked once what my definition of Quality was, after a bit of thought, I answered, “The best possible product or service given to the customer at that moment in time.” It could have been by most terms described as a cowardly answer as it seems to take no solid stance or no real posture to relevancy. I beg to differ though, if you have a mind set to adapt to what your customer wants when they want it, your competitor however strong a brand they may be, may lose that customer or client to you simply because you resonated in their ears a lot more than the familiar brand they are used to and with a product or service that is the one niche they are loking for, Can this be a curse too? yes, let’s be honest you have to have something that everyone will associate you with as far as a brand they can recognize or identify with.

An advantage to being that type of “quality” though, is the ability to adapt to your suctomers needs through constant metrics and testing to see what your market is looking for and giving it to them at that moment in time, There are some Business Intelligence tools that can help with that, and then sometimes it will take a bit more of just watching and listening to the marketplace to see what everyone wants or needs. Get in front of them and make your offering.

All in all though making sure your three “R”s are in order and continual, your business stands to profit the most when everyone knows you have what they want. Driving behavior is the key. If you can effect mass re-programming, you stand to profit well!

Find yours and Keep it Rolling!

Where’s the money flowing…

Seth Godin makes a real interesting point on his latest blog; where the money is there you’ll find the people working.

Interesting to me that it starts as an end still and then the means justifies it. (almost sounds like the torture debate going on right now)

Here’s a tag to Mr. Godin’s point; if there is money to be made you can well believe that someone is going to be searching for it.

He wrote that things change around once there’s money to be made in any particluar field. He related it to writers becoming publishers which is the reverse of what was. (When the Writer Becomes the Publisher / Seth Godin – 05/2009)

It would seem pretty logical that once the public wants something, they are willing to pay for it, so what is it that you have that they are willing to pay for? What message can you get across to them to tell them what you have is what they need? Many times I see “the best blah blah” or “Number 1 blah blah in the state” C’mon, do you really think that is going to attract attention? If it does, I’d be pretty surprised. Nowadays it’s just not enough. Mr. Godin back in 2003 made refernece to being remarkable(the purple cow). If you have a pizz,a shop fine, so does almost every other coner strip mall, what makes yours so different?

Here in Las Vegas, NV , a local pizza chain by the name of Metro pizza decided to become the “purple cow” of the valley by holding pizza making classes. Their pizza is great, but now they are the teachers of pizza making, and it’s doing very well. People are paying for classes and more are hearing by word of mouth how great their pizzas are. Do you think they can charge a bit more because of that?

Here’s the bottom line: You have to find the flow of money where it is moving and get in front of it. It’s the one time you want to get run over by the flood. Even if you can’t handle it you’ll have known what is was like and can most likey prepare for it better next time. Pizza makers to pizza making teachers,writers becoming publishers, what else can you think of that would set you apart and find you more income for your business through the right marketing message?

Keep it rolling!

Just groovin…twittering a little @loicly.

Ok, so the @loic effect has begun. He unfollowed something like 23K in followers to unclutter what he had been following….ummm yeah??!

I think I would do the same. It is an interesting approach, and to someone like myself, that doesn’t want to have to follow and read every tweet all day long,( I do have a job to do you know) I would probably do the same thing just to keep it simply simple.

There are some seriously killer tweeps that follow hardly anyone (@wilw, @charleneli, @ambermacarthur) and have major followings. I guess they have a lot of followers that either followed from their blogs, or just figured that following them they can get some good info, or just a great laugh.

Here’s the thought on this though; the old way of following a ton of people and waiting to see how many follow back, and then trying to figure out who is real and who is a bot, or a service…not the real person is a bit much to deal with. Especially if you’re new…where do you start? You could start at www.search.twitter.com or another tool. However, how do you keep up with everyone? Tweetdeck? Tweet Manager could help you …oh wait. now you just became what the “gurus” are trying to filter out. Damn! How does this work so you have a ton of followers without having to follow so many? Guess we’ll have to plod along until someone finds the next best app when we’ll all be tweeting from our brains ‘at will’, to get everyone’s attention…wait…don’t we have a technology like that already? (implants?)

Personally I like trackin’ down the ones I wanna hear from, and then if they follow back kewl. But mass unfollowing? Is this to be the next big trend? and is this really a good thing? what does this do to Twitter in general? Does this defeat the purpose of what Twitter is for? or was this just the ploy of the Allstar tweeters(@guykawasaki, @scobleizer) to get all they can and just kind of read whatever they want and ….I don’t know….you know? Does that pre-suppose a type of “collateral damage”? (too many tweets going nowhere) Yet, this seems to be a part of Twitter.com’s culture. Seems a bit confusing when there are these others that follow less than ten percent of the number that follows them…fame? purpose?

Wait…

If there’s to be a trend you would hope that its relevance connecting to relevance, but of course people like being entertained too…so…why are we on twitter again?

We’ll have to really see what the trend leads to. For me? I think that mass following has its purpose, but if I can keep it narrow and focused, I will…not

I love the little pieces of info I can get from certain Tweeters, but I don’t always enjoy the randomness of it. I am glad there are tools and apps that help me to “screen” out the tweets I don’t need or want.

What do you think?

Oh and I’m listening to pandora.com I think Diana Krall’s been playin “The Look of Love”. Oh nope, it’s Nancy Wilson, “Who Can I Turn To”.

Nice to have music playin while I write…easier to do.