Rockin’ Citizen Marketing by National Guard
Have you been to a movie lately and seen the promo by the National Guard ?
If not, prepare to be rocked by Three Doors Down and Citizen Soldier.
I’ve been twice in the last 7 days, Hitman and August Rush and both times I got the extreme pleasure of being as entertained by this promo as by the movie.
Three Doors Down, who also rocked my world with Kryptonite, one of my all-time favorite songs, was a great choice for this song and if I weren’t almost 45 ( January ‘08 ) and if I hadn’t already done my 6 years, I’d be down at a recruiter tomorrow signing up for duty.
The National Guard has come up with the best recruiting tool I’ve ever seen and I’ve been watching military marketing since the day I joined in January of ‘81.
Army Strong was good, this is better.
This is real citizen marketing, by real citizens, to real citizens, for real citizens.
Beowulf Style Marketing
Beowulf is a marketer’s dream come true. Or a nightmare.
I’m not sure which.
First off, you have a classic product being re-released in new clothes.
Or lack thereof, in the case of the Angelina Jolie inspired avatar and quite often the image inspired by, but not fleshed out enough to be, Ray Winstone and too fleshed out in the case of Anthony Hopkins’ King Hrothgar.
Let’s start with a perfectly fine product, the original Beowulf. I never read it, so it must have been too deep for my shallow little mind.
A fourteen hundred year-old poem brought up to standard with 2007’s technology is much more suited for me than a dusty old book.
Too bad the technology chosen was not as viewable as say, ‘300′ was, in my opinion.
But that’s where the marketing comes in.
You have a cartoonish technology that’s a bit better than your usual Scooby Doo cartoons of my childhood, but still inferior to the CGI used for ‘300′.
What do you do to attract prospects ?
What do you do to turn those prospects into paying customers ?
Duh ! Do what works, of course. Use a naked avatar of Angelina Jolie and make sure it’s got more meat on it than the actual prototype does.
I’ve seen the covers of People magazine waiting in line at the grocery store. And I’ve seen Beowulf.
The avatar is fleshed out WAY, WAY better than the prototype. The actual Angelina could take some hints from the movies and get rid of some of those bones that stick out at odd angles and those veins that are too close to the surface from the lack of meat on said bones.
The next bit of marketing genius is to take your hero, who has no thought of going the Spartan and steroid route and give him a six pack-o-abs thru the wonders of cartoons and animation.
The fact that they never showed him in full regalia gives more creedence to the steroid accusation. Even does it’s dirty deed to cartoon figures, I guess.
Beowulf has another, more important, quality to him that we as marketers need to be aware of.
He never missed a chance to expand upon his legend, his product, it’s brand, it’s uses and it’s features. He was a copywriter’s dream come tru and a bullet point per minute kind of guy.
As a marketer, I loved the dude.
As a matter of fact, he was the ultimate PR guy from start to finish.
Write it down - Never miss a chance to tell the world how good your product is.
Never be scared to build it’s reputation to the fullest and shout it’s effectiveness at the top of your lungs.
If you don’t, nobody will do it for you. Unless you happen to hang out with your own team of citizen evangelists, here called his crew.
And if you can enlist a naked Angelina Jolie to help you promote it, you might have a product fit for a King or maybe, if you live long enough to say what you should have said a long time ago…a Queen.
Beowulf - Gotta love his marketing team and the movie’s good too.
The Top 100 Business Blogs
I just noticed, via Drew’s Marketing Minute, that Simplenomics.com is sitting at #37, as I write this, on the list of The Top 100 Business Blogs.
To be on that list, compiled by John Crickett, is an honor for me.
Now, how can you make that list work for you ?
How about reading those blogs for 2-3 weeks and seeing how many are still keeping your interest after that time ?
How about asking them to guest post for you and you for them ?
Expand your reach, expand your knowledge and expand you networking possibilities.
Thanks John, I appreciate your efforts.
Warning ! More Really Stupid Salespeople Ahead !
Here’s Round 2 of the stories my friend Debbi Bressler sent me.
A guy and his wife walk down from their NYC condo to a restaurant for Sunday brunch.
Two little elderly ladies are seated next to them.
Waiter: Hi ladies ! Can I start you with some soup ?
Little Lady: That would be great ! What are the soups of the day ?
Waiter: Well, we have chicken noodle and vegetable right now. Our really good soup won’t be ready for another hour.
Little Lady: ………… ( speechless).
Okay. So the guy doesn’t have a career in sales ahead of him. But what would you say to that … besides:
” Okay thanks. I’ll be back in an hour. “
Again, why do salespeople, and waiters are salespeople, cast doubt, confusion and anger into a situation containing a prospect ?
Again, the answer is, they don’t. Not everybody in sales is a salesperson. Just as not everybody who walks into a garage is a car.
Warning ! Really Stupid Salespeople Ahead !
What would you think of customer service like this ?
A really good friend who knows sales, marketing and customer service called me today and dropped two bombs on me.
She knew I’d write about ‘em and she didn’t have time to write ‘em up herself.
A guy and his wife go into a furniture store for a mattress. Here’s the gist of their conversation with a sales associate.
Them: Hi. We’re looking for a king size mattress.
Salesman: Ooooh ! Too bad you weren’t here 2 days ago. We had them on sale for 15% off. Today they’re $999.
Them: Uh… yeah, that sucks. Can you get us that price ?
Salesman: Nope. Sorry.
Them: Can we talk to a manager ?
Salesman: Sure thing. I’ll get him.
They tell their story about having cash and wanting to spend it, but since the mattresses were on sale only 48 hours ago, can you sell it to us for that price.
Manager: Nope. Sorry, but I don’t even get an override on sales, so it won’t help me at all to do that. Can you believe this company doesn’t pay the manager on the sales made ?
Them: Never mind. We’ll go somewhere else.
Why would a salesman ever tell a prospect about a lower price that isn’t in effect any more ?
And why would a manager ever tell a prospect about his compensation plan ?
The answer is neither would, which means that neither are.
In case you didn’t catch that, there are a myriad of ways to converse with a prospect besides instigating anger, confusion and doubt.
Why Cut The Price ? How About Adding Value Instead?
Over at BloggingPro.com I saw the first of many posts about WordPress’ plans to set up a marketplace for themes.
I personally don’t mind if someone wants to create a professionally designed theme and them maintain and support it … for pay.
I’d rather pay for professional products and support than wait 3-7 days on someone who has a day job, a social life and an unprofessional attitude.
But that’s not the main reason I wrote about that post.
The first comment is. Check this out:
” … I tell you what, ill split profit 25/75. “
That was in response to the news that Automattic might charge 50% of the sales cost for their fee.
Why is the first response of an unskilled marketer/salesperson always a price cut ?
I’m thinking the unskilled, unlearned part of that equation is the main reason.
That and the fact they didn’t read this post .
There’s about 30 comments, as I write this, with people telling us they want quality, not necessarily the cheapest price.
Instead of cutting the Automattic price by 50%, why not sell the themes at the same 50% split, but add value in some way.
For instance, a tutorial on installing and pimpin’ your purchased theme.
Or you could offer free installation.
Or add value in any of 103 other ways.
Just don’t cut the price … unless you’re Pete The Price Slashin’ Pirate Parrot !
