23 November 2009

An Introvert Does Social Media

It's an ongoing source of amusement and occasional irritation between my wife and me that I'm a classic introvert and she, a hard-core extrovert. On Saturday, after a particularly tough week marked by the death of a relative, we both needed to decompress. I took my camera and went to a wildlife sanctuary to watch the sun set over the wetlands. She drove into the city to be around a lot of humans, drink her double tall, half caf, nonfat Latte and watch the sun set over Newbury Street. We work because of a mutual respect for different styles and because we know we're often better together than we are apart.

My business relationships follow the same model. The ones that work best are the more personal ones in which we are partners, not vendors and the combination of our ideas results in better outcomes. I do "relationship marketing" because it's in my nature. I'm energized by one-on-one communication or interfacing with small teams. It's why at first the mass deification of social media seems like a mass intrusion into my comfort zone. When every event, conversation and even my SPAM hypes social media as THE way to build meaningful relationships, my first inclination is to dial down the blablablab. But when I get over myself and the antipathy towards the mainstream and massive hype, I'm starting to experience aspects of social media as a pretty perfect way for an introvert to exchange ideas with many people and engage in more informed conversations. That is what I hope to do here. Call me slow, but there it is.

As a marketer with mostly B2B clients, I've observed some companies with internal teams twittering away merely to stay north of the relevance line and often with no apparent relationship to other marketing initiatives. I'm finding that after this grueling year that quite a few marketing departments are stretched like a rubber band with the collective tension one would expect. One of our partners, Lois Paul & Partners, a PR firm in the high tech space, is one of the few I know who are seriously leveraging social media successfully for B2B firms. This case study is a good example:
www.loispaul.com/casestudies/arbor2.aspx

If you have B2B social media success stories, please feel free to share.

Photograph: Paul Regensburg

Categories: General
Posted by Paul Regensburg at 10:16 PM   |  5 Comments

19 November 2009

A Sixth Thing I learned about Blogging in the First Month

Adding to Tuesday's post, another important tip for effective blog writing may seem like the most obvious one - "Know your Audience." Knowing your audience is the most fundamental aspect of everything we do at RainCastle and of marketing in general. Imagine building a brand without a clear idea of audience. Information architecture would be impossible for a website if you didn't know for whom you were building the experience. But the blog experience is broader than any one brand or information architecture. I'm writing for all of our brand and web clients at once.

Our clients span technology, biotechnology and professional services. Within each of those vertical markets are a plethora of sub-markets. So, to avoid being a mile wide and an inch deep, I've chosen "differentiation" as the common denominator. What I can safely say I know about my audience is that they all come to us to help them differentiate.

If your audience is broad, like mine, ask them why they chose to work with you and what they expect from the experience. When comparing notes, you will begin to see a common idea emerge.

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Posted by Paul Regensburg at 5:26 PM   |  No Comments

17 November 2009

5 Things I’ve Learned about Blogging in the First Month

I've been blogging for a month and am taking a decidedly organic approach by writing about whatever issues are on my mind. This may be a bit scattershot, but it's natural to me and I am beginning to formulate thoughts about what will make the blog successful. Here are 5 things I've learned in creating an effective blog. 

1. Find a Common Voice
My A.D.D. tendencies are apparent. I'm writing about a variety of topics that range from "helpful tips," to strategic perspective to personal anecdotes. It's only a matter of time before I locate the thread that will yield a common voice. I welcome comments from anyone who has a viewpoint on this.

2. Experimentation is Good
I'm experimenting with sticking with a theme for several posts, with the potential of developing a longer piece if the writing opens up possibilities. Last week, I wrote a couple of posts about Taglines, an area in which we've been successful. The week before, I experimented with a humorous piece about my favorite TV show, MadMen. Assessing the blog every month or so will begin to yield some patterns in both theme and style.

3. Ignore the Void
I remember, in the early years of RainCastle, we won a prestigious award for a website. I found myself walking up to the stage to receive our award in front of an audience of over 1000 people. When I got to the podium and looked out, I was blinded by the lights and could see nobody. It was totally disorienting to speak to the void, a bit like a dream. Blog writing is "the void," at first. Best advice is to ignore that. This is probably good because I'll use this time to find my common voice.

4. Authenticity is Hard
Bloggers I know recommend that I look at a lot of blogs to get a feel for the language and content of established bloggers. This is useful - to a point. There are so many blogs about the web, social media, design, marketing and branding, it can be overwhelming. If you spend too much time looking, you can lose whatever is unique about your own perspective. I tend to study other blogs for tone and style and less for content. Starting a blog reminds me of when I began my graphic design career. I used to pour over Communication Arts (CA), which at the time was the designer publication cum-Bible. I noticed pretty quickly that I was starting to use CA as a crutch and stopped looking at it. Authenticity is hard. The only way to create original work or write meaningful posts is by doing the work yourself.

5. Be Aware
Writing a blog has been great so far for making me more aware of what's going on around me. Once you accept the discipline of writing, you're compelled to think more deeply about things, to work through a notion and determine if it's worthy of becoming a conclusion. I don't think you need to have an editorial calendar for ablog, but I am finding it helpful to write down one-line thoughts that are sparked from client interactions, events or conversations.

For any bloggers out there, can you share what you've learned about writing an effective blog?

For you blog readers, what makes you keep coming back to a blog?

Categories:
Posted by Paul Regensburg at 11:48 AM   |  5 Comments

12 November 2009

Five Tips For Creating a Tagline That Your Client Will Fall in Love With

There are plenty of tips for creating a tagline your client will fall in love with. These are on the top of my list.

Simplicity
Though it lacks soul, salesforce.com's "No Software" icon is an effective tagline. This is an idea simple enough for anyone to understand. salesforce.com has not only built a brand around this simple tagline, they started a category, SAAS. Simplicity sells.

Clarity
The tagline tagline process forces you to be clear. If you're like most companies, you have a number of things you'd like customers to know about you. You need to decide which is first among equals, or don't bother with a tagline. If you are better, faster and stronger, decide which attribute is least prevalent among your competitors and emphasize that.

Branded
If you've conducted a brand exercise, then a tagline should flow naturally from that. A tagline is a distillation of your brand into its simplest, most memorable form. Our recent brand work for Unica corporation is a strong example of a branded tagline. We built a customer-focused brand around the tagline, "Marketing Success Starts with U," which employs the double meaning,

a) - that "U," the customer are ultimately in control of your marketing and

b) - that the "U" also stands for Unica, the catalyst for that success.

Unique
Volkswagen's "Drivers Wanted" is one of my favorite taglines. In just two words (yes, forget for a moment the multi-million dollar ad campaign) it implied the kind of customer they were targeting and made one want to be that customer. Two little words uniquely raised the perception of quality and brand leadership. "Drivers Wanted" actually embodies all of the characteristics of a great tagline.

Benefit-driven
A good tagline is benefit-driven. The work we did for medical device maker NxStage Medical, is a good example of a benefit-driven tagline. NxStage is revolutionizing kidney dialysis (renal care) by providing a simple, compact home dialysis solution. Our tagline is "Renal Care, Pure and Simple." This understated tagline actually embodies a revolutionary concept for this market, which is "simplicity," and combines it with a requirement of dialysis, which is purification of blood.

These 5 tips will give you a great start for crafting a tagline your clients will fall in love with... or at least begin to develop a romantic inclination.

Photo courtesy of House of Sims

Categories:
Posted by Paul Regensburg at 11:13 AM   |  4 Comments

10 November 2009

Creating a Tagline That Your Client Will Fall in Love With

The CEO of a client for whom we recently created a brand was what I would
call a "mildly supportive observer" throughout a comprehensive branding
process we led his company through. When he heard the tagline, it all

clicked for him and he became an effective brand evangelist to his
customers and employees. It takes Tiger Woods thousands of putts to sink that
10 footer when it matters. The right tagline follows that same logic.

In much of the work we do crafting brand identities and interactive
experiences, words are strategic elements of design. Strong messaging is the
warp and weft in the fabric of a strong brand.  As part of our brand
engagements, I develop a lot of taglines for our clients. The term

"tagline" has always bothered me because it has such a trivial sound, bringing to
mind the in-house competitions companies often have, especially in lean times.

When done right a tagline can catch the imagination of a company and drive home the
key differentiator. If the underlying brand positioning is authentic, "a tagline is worth a
thousand pictures."

In my next post, I'll share five tips for creating a tagline your clients will fall in love with.

Categories: Brand / Marketing
Posted by Paul Regensburg at 3:05 PM   |