The Marketing Plaza

Starbucks Five Ways of Being are a roadmap for
creating a great brochure in addition to a great coffee experience.

This week on The Blogger’s Bulletin, I wrote a piece on why the Starbucks Five Ways of Being are appropriate advice for bloggers. Here, I’m continuing the analogy with how we can take tips from our local baristas and learn how to improve our brochures and marketing material.  There’s more than coffee that you can take away from a Starbucks encounter.

In The Starbucks Experience (2007), author Joseph Michelli reviews what has made Starbucks not just a new product or service, but part of our current cultural experience. Starbucks has had some trips since then, but likely its strong corporate credos have allowed it to be flexible in better responding to market changes. At Starbucks, they are called the “Five Ways of Being.”

• Be welcoming
• Be genuine
• Be considerate
• Be knowledgeable
• Be involved

It’s a great map for great marketing, particularly a brochure.  Here’s how:

• Welcoming – I recently saw a brochure where the first page was solid type.  It wasn’t a letter or designed as part of the brochure.  It was intimidating to read, heavy on the eyes and not welcoming to the brochure. It made you want to close the piece rather than dig deeper — kind of like a huge Victorian novel with tiny type.  You likely won’t approach it unless it’s assigned reading. Make sure your opening brochure material is just that – open with welcoming content enticing your reader to enter and linger awhile.
• Genuine – Don’t use flamboyant language, make promises you can’t keep, or statements that don’t ring true. Advertising and marketing materials already have a bad rap for puffery.  Not everyone is the best, brightest, cheapest, highest quality.  The trick to real marketing is being real and finding your true unique selling proposition. If you don’t know it, don’t spend money on puff pieces.  The reader can see right through it.
• Considerate – Be conscious of your customers concerns and address those rather than your ego.  No one likes meeting people at parties who just talk about themselves and yet we think marketing is a business resume letting the reader in on all the wonderful things they need to know about us.  It’s not.  Marketing is your introduction. Tell the customer a little about yourself and a lot about themselves.  If they self-identify, they’ll know you’re the right match for them.
• Knowledgeable – Give some information away for free. You’ve already paid to send people the brochure, so give them some value. Read Chris Anderson’s Free, or link to my post about him and think about what you can already provide for free to give prospects a taste of what you have to offer.  Consider Anderson’s Jello example, where free recipes entices people to want to buy Jello as an ingredient.
• Involved – Show how you are up-to-date and involved with your area of expertise.  Is it a passion?  Why would we know?  Bring us into your story and show us how you evolved and are involved.  People like to work with people they feel they want to know.  Get involved with your customers and give them a behind the scenes look into who and what you are.

There they are – the five ways of being and how you can use them in your next brochure. So before you start your next marketing endeavor, slow down, get a cup of coffee and ponder how you want your brochure to come into being.

Even if you don’t have a marketing budget, you probably have an ad budget.  Or, you’re somewhat willing to spend some money on advertising, even if it’s a directory listing, because somewhere you bought into the idea that you have to get the word out on your business.

True:  Marketing budgets usually contain some allocation to advertising.

False: Having an ad budget does not mean you have a marketing budget. Do not confuse them.  More on this in a future post.

For this post, take a close eye at where you are spending any ad dollars. Here are 3 places to avoid:

1. The Yellow Pages.  Unless your business is extremely local, and unless you’re a plumber — this is no longer the vehicle it used to be.  Most people searching for local businesses use internet directories, many of which are free.  And, if your business is extremely local, unless you are a pizza parlor, I’d ask why you’ve put limits on your own geographic reach.

2. The Trade Press. Advertising in your own trades is just an ego boost.  Trades advertising is best for vendors to your business — manufacturers, supply chain vendors and services who cater to your business.  Small businesses who advertise in their own trades are largely trying to look bigger to their competitors. There’s a place for this type of campaign, but it’s not for the majority of small businesses with limited marketing budgets.

3. The Local Baseball Field. There’s some  value to having your name as a sponsor on local playing field. However, it’s not all that much and it’s largely community service.  I’m not saying don’t put your logo and name on playing field, but if you do –realize you are doing it for 2 reasons.  One, again is ego.  Ego has no place in marketing. The second is to be a good community citizen, and there’s great value in that.  However, then you should have the dollars allocated from the community service side of your marketing budget or plan and not from the ad budget. After all, you are not largely reaching your key target audience and your ROI is likely to be low if measurable at all.

There are many crazy places to advertise these days from urinal stalls to stadium turnstiles.  Most are not recommended.  Unless you are a BIG GUY (in branding not in personal height or weight), don’t consider the crazy notions until you’ve got basics covered.  What are the basics?  That’s a difficult question that varies by company, goals and plan. But, I can tell you the three above are not part of anyone’s basics unless they are living in the 1950′s.