AMiable Solution #216: How Does Your Garden Grow?

Last month, Steve Cody, co-founder and CEO of Peppercomm, a strategic communications firm, examined some critical marketing lessons for Inc.com in his article, “The Top 12 Marketing Wins and Losses of 2016.”  He looked at the good and destructive choices that other organizations made in order to help us learn what to do and what not to do.

Although there’s definitely value in learning from others’ experience (and from Cody’s analysis, available here, http://www.inc.com/steve-cody/the-top-12-marketing-wins-and-losses-of-2016.html, we know that even more can be gained from a bit of self-analysis.  But, instead of just swimming in numbers or getting overwhelmed in a sea of reports and analyses (which are useful but often demoralizing), we suggest supplementing your evaluations with a more graphic approach: a garden drawing.

We know it might sound silly, but try it.  Using images to examine your year-long marketing efforts can help you make sense of the numbers and reports, organizing your data and providing insight in ways that numbers and text alone can’t.

So go ahead: take a blank sheet of paper, turn it sideways, and draw a line through the middle, from left to right. 

Now, without referencing any reports or spreadsheets, think about your organization’s marketing experiences this past year.  For every success or highlight, draw a flower above the line.  For every disappointment or failure, draw a root below the line.  Think about new or revamped campaigns, key customers, new markets you pursued, new talent you hired or new spokespeople you teamed up with, seasoned professionals who celebrated milestones or received recognition, changes you made in your processes or vendors, investments you made in technology, experiences you had with clients or donors, publicity you received, etc.  Think, too, about things that happened within your organization or your department, including events that increased or dampened morale, productivity, growth or reductions in staff, etc.

Now look at your marketing “garden.”  How does it look?  Did you have a better year, overall, than you initially remembered?  Did you struggle more than you’d like to admit?  If you planted your flowers and roots in chronological order, do you notice any patterns?  Did your roots generate periods of inactivity, or did they get turned into something better?

Although you can’t take your garden to your CEO or CFO in place of a traditional report, you can take it to heart: recognize the good that occurred this year.  Celebrate the successes, and examine the setbacks.  Even failures can be nurtured into growth.

AMiable Solution #215: Decembers to Remember

It’s nearly the end of December, a wonderful month filled with fantastic reasons to celebrate.  Whether you believe in things unseen or seen only, you can’t deny the importance of these often-overlooked December occasions:

·        On December 15, 1791, the Bill of Rights, a collection of 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, became law.  That day, the state of Virginia became the 10^th of 14 states (the number needed for a two-thirds majority) to approve 10 of the proposed 12 amendments sent by the first Congress.  Of the two remaining amendments, one--which concerned the population system of representation--was never ratified.  The other, which prohibited laws varying the payment of congressional members from taking effect until an election intervened, was ratified more than 200 years later, in 1992. (http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/bill-of-rights-is-finally-ratified)

·        December 20, 1803, France transferred authority of the Louisiana Territory to the United States.  The purchase was a bit of a surprise for the United States.  At the time, the United States was interested only in retaining its rights to store goods in New Orleans, a right that been given in a U.S.-Spanish treaty and then revoked in 1802 by Spanish authorities, acting under French orders.  But in mid-April 1803, Napoleon, most likely driven by France’s failure to put down a slave revolution in Haiti, an impending war with Great Britain, and financial difficulties, offered the Louisiana territory to the United States.  (http://www.history.com/topics/louisiana-purchase)

·        On December 17, 1903, the Wright brothers, Wilbur and Orville, made the first successful flight in history in a gasoline-powered, propeller-driven biplane near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.  The brothers took turns and completed four separate flights, travelling, at the farthest, 852 feet in 59 seconds.  The machine, however, would never fly again.  After the final flight, a gust of wind rolled it over and damaged it beyond easy repair. (https://www.nps.gov/wrbr/learn/historyculture/thefirstflight.htm)

No matter what you’re celebrating this month, we wish you the best: peace, joy, happiness, time with family and friends, and rest.

AMiable Solution #214: Unopened Gifts

You see two gifts on the table.  Both of them have your name on it.  One looks like Martha Stewart wrapped it: the gift wrap looks seamless, it’s not covered from top to bottom in pieces of tape, the folds are crisp and flat, and the ribbon and adornments make it almost too pretty to open.  The other gift, on the other hand, looks positively plain next to it.

But you open both, right?  That’s because you know that although having an attractive outside is appealing, what really matters is what you find inside.

You could argue that your customers look at your direct mail packages the same way.  A colorful, image-filled outside will surely get their attention, but as long as the content is engaging and relevant to the recipient, a simpler, plainer outside will work just as well.

But you have to make sure that you deliver on the goods.  The can’t resist discounts.  The heartwarming stories.  The timely products.  The picked-just-for-me services.

If you continually send your customers, members, or donors offers that either don’t pertain to them or that simply fail to excite them, they will no longer look at your direct marketing as gifts but as burdens.  Trash.  Something to discredit and discard without ever opening them.

Bells and whistles may catch their eyes, but thoughtful, well-planned offers will catch your market’s loyalty.  Happy gift giving.

AMiable Solution #213: Mass Production

I admit it: during the week leading up to Thanksgiving, I fell for a network’s hype and watched a number of made-for-tv Christmas movies.  And I realized something pretty quickly: they all started to look the same. 

Some of the actors or actresses appeared in more than one of the movies.  The plots were pretty similar and predictable (troubled Christmas town/business looks doomed but is saved in the end by a seemingly unlikely source and love interest).  And three of the movies I watched ended the exact same way: the camera gave a soft-focus shot of a lit Christmas tree and then panned up.

The television network these movies aired on proudly boasted having 19 new Christmas movies this year, but I felt duped.

How often do we see organizations do this: repackage the same product or service or campaign with a slight tweak and hope that we, the consumers, don’t notice the lack of originality or value?  We believe it makes financial and strategic sense to build new things based on proven formulas, but at some point someone has to realize that consumers need more.

Are your “new” products or campaigns reruns or truly unique and beneficial offerings?  Will your market tune you in or out?   If you’re repackaging the same old story, your ending might not be as cheerful.