Writing tips…but not donuts.

April 13, 2011
Filed under: Writing Tips — @ 1:14 pm

So, after handing out donuts to all 300 people at the Vermont Travel Industry Conference during my keynote address yesterday, I feel as if I showed up to lead today’s writing workshop empty handed.

Happily, I had a handful of Redpoint signature chocolate mice and five copies of my favorite pocket Thesaurus to hand out to all people who actively participated in the dialogue…but it still didn’t feel like enough.

So…I promised the attendees I’d post some essential writing tips and tools here this afternoon.  (And if you weren’t there with us today, you can enjoy these with my compliments.)

Here are two PDFs to download:

Self-Editing Tips

Life Cycle of Drafting a Document

You can also check out some of my favorite writing tips that have been posted on our blog by clicking here.

These may not be as tasty and exciting as donuts, but they’ll be significantly more helpful when you are trying to craft a strategic document.

Though, I admit that a chocolate frosted donut (or 2…or 3) has helped me tackle a difficult writing project in the wee hours of the morning more than once.  So if these tips aren’t doing the trick, put them aside in favor of donuts and watch the creativity flow like frosting.

Lesson learned: no more boots at boot camp.

March 28, 2011
Filed under: Observations From the Field, Social Media — @ 12:34 pm

Here they are…the culprits:

The boots that launched a blog post.

I wore these suckers while leading a presentation at a recent Redpoint Marketing Boot Camp, and they caused some hilarity.  While pausing momentarily in my front-of-room pacing to answer a question, I crossed one leg in front of the other…and that’s when my boots worked their mischief.  The metal hooks of one locked into the finger loop of the other, and voila:  I was stuck.  (enlarge the photo if you’re curious about the mechanics)

In a split second, I realized that there would be no graceful resolution to this situation.  They were hooked tightly, and jiggling them unobtrusively only seemed to make it worse.  So, there was nothing for it but to confess to the group, bend dramatically from the waist (thank you, Miss Marianne, for the years of dance training in my youth), and perform the intricate surgery required.

The audience’s laughter was ringing in my ears while I was down there, but I took comfort that they weren’t laughing at ME…they were laughing at what I said:

Guys, can you believe this?  My boots just got hooked together and y’all need to give me a minute to get untangled.  Note to self:  no more boots at boot camp.

Here’s what I learned from this hilarious situation.

1 – If you want to hear God laugh…make a plan.  I had this day orchestrated down to the most well-thought-out detail.  Boots hooking together did not even make the list of “things to prevent from going wrong.”  So, just be ready to take things as they come.

2 – If you are giving a presentation – no matter how “exalted” your authority or expertise is – you’re still just a person.  And your boots can get hooked together just like anyone else.  Displaying practical humility at all times will enable you to maintain your dignity and authority…even through a dramatic “waist bending moment.”

3 – Social media has changed our culture forever.  After getting unhooked, I said to the group…”do me a favor…if that happens again and I go flying while trying to move, please don’t all whip out your video phones and immortalize it on YouTube.”  And then someone shouted out “Why?  It would get millions of views and you’d be famous!”

And you know what?  Damn.  She was right.  Why didn’t I think of that?

Note to self:  wear boots at next boot camp.

You too can be clever and intelligent six times a day on Facebook.

March 22, 2011
Filed under: Marketing Strategies, Social Media — @ 1:04 pm

Last week at Redpoint’s Marketing Boot Camp in Maine, a participant asked me how many times a day a hotel should be posting and interacting with its Facebook community.

My response?  “A lot depends on how large and active your fan base is, but certainly everyone in this room should strive to post interesting and engaging stuff at least six times a day.”

Audience response?  (Insert dramatic collective gasping sound here)

Then one brave participant raised her hand from the waaaaay back and voiced what was on everyone’s mind…

“With everything else I have to do at work, I’m just not sure I have it in me to be clever and intelligent six times a day on Facebook.”

After they all stopped laughing, everyone just looked at me expectantly…perhaps willing me to back down from that (to them) lofty goal with a fabulous display of group peer pressure.

But I’m a tough old marketer, and I held my ground.  After giving everyone a verbal valium about how and why this is important, I shared a few tips on how to make it easy to be cool, interesting, fun, timely, and engaging on Facebook…without struggling to create ideas from scratch all day long.  Sure, that’s easy to do when it’s your full time job, but most of us who manage our brands’ Facebook communities already have other full time jobs.  So we need a little help to keep us cool and groovy.

If you need this kind of help too, check out our Tip Sheet here.  Got a tip of your own to share with the redpointspeaks.com community?  Post a comment here!

Oh…and, footnote:  I’ve been traveling extensively lately…weeks at a time.  So, when I got back to the office on Friday for the first time in what seemed ages, My Coffee Guys said “Miss!  Where you been?  We worry you are sick!”  Oh, it’s good to be loved.

Stop using this phrase…ASAP!

February 24, 2011
Filed under: Writing Tips, The Power of Persuasion, Effective Communication — @ 10:01 am

Did you ever ask someone to do something “ASAP” and then not get what you want, when you wanted it?  Here’s why that happened:

The phrase ASAP lets people choose their own deadline.  It means “as soon as possible,” which – in their world – might be now, tomorrow, next Wednesday, or never.  Everyone has their own to-do list and method of prioritization, so the vague direction of ASAP puts the power in the recipient’s hands to judge the level of urgency.

And this is a no-no for getting people to do what we want.

YOU keep the power, or else your own to-do list will always be at the mercy of other people’s timelines.  This doesn’t mean you can’t be flexible in your deadline…but if you don’t give one as a starting point, how will the person know where it fits in their to-do list?

There was a time when ASAP implied “immediately,” but those days are over.  We’ve abused the phrase too much for it to have any real meaning (see how we’ve also done this with the phrase “thanks”).

So, if you want to greatly increase the chance that your deadline will be met, be clear in your request and state the specific day/time you would like to see results.

Want to comment on this post?  Do it…right now, immediately, without delay, before doing anything else, this instant.

The best marketing strategy…EVER.

February 17, 2011
Filed under: Customer Service, Marketing Strategies, Observations From the Field — @ 8:20 am

The coffee cart vendor “guys” on the northwest corner of Spring Street and Avenue of the Americas in NYC might just be the smartest marketers I’ve ever met.  But they have never sent me a single email.  Nor given me a coupon.  Nor “caught” me with a pay-per-click strategy.

They don’t have a website.  Or business cards.  Or a Facebook page.  Heck, I don’t even think they have a brand name (but based on the haphazard, grammatically incorrect signage plastered around the cart…I’d have to guess their brand name is “Coffe and Donut”).

And yet…my recent expression of consumer behavior just proved my loyalty to them beyond a shadow of a doubt.

After nine years of emerging from the same subway exit every morning to grab a coffee from “The Guys” at the very convenient coffee cart right at the top of the stairs…I moved.  And on Monday this week, I started taking a DIFFERENT subway line to work, and my path from subway exit to office door takes me past 6 other coffee cart vendors, and NOT past “The Guys.”

But damn if I didn’t walk right past all of them without a single glance, continue past my building’s front door, and head to the corner to “My Guys” (note transformation from general “The” to possessive “My”).  And what’s the first thing they said to me?…

“Good morning miss!  Why you come from that way today?”

And then I realized why I adore them so much:  they are so very aware of me.  And not just me, but ALL of their regular customers…and you become a “regular” with these guys by your third purchase.  When there’s no line and they can see me coming over from the subway stairs, they have my coffee ready by the time I get to the cart.  And when the line is 8 deep and I appear to be antsy, a wink and a nod from them signals me around to the back of the cart for an under-the-radar exchange of coffee-for-money.  And when it’s pouring rain in the predawn hours, and I’m fumbling around in my bag to find my wallet, they tell me “No worry, miss.  Tomorrow you give.”

What’s the marketing lesson here?  Without spending a single dollar on “marketing,” you can inspire loyalty in your customers – and make them ambassadors for your brand – just by doing three simple things:  genuinely caring about their needs, serving those needs efficiently, and exceeding their expectations. 

I have been to five-star luxury resorts that don’t treat me as well as My Guys do, and yet they make less money off me in one year than those resorts do in one night.  This proves that a “brand” can provide exceptional service without fancy training programs, Brand Standards, Mission Statements, marketing tactics, or any of the other hundred “we don’t have the budget for that” excuses that big brands often use as a crutch to justify subpar service.

So…Lal (left) and Abdul (right)…hats off to you.  You may have proper names (really?…you mean you’re not actually named Doll, Sweetie, Love, or My Dear, as I’ve been calling you all these years?)…but to me, you’ll always be “My Guys.”

Why publicists don’t feel the love on Valentine’s Day…

February 4, 2011
Filed under: Observations From the Field, Media Relations — @ 8:02 am

Being a publicist on Valentine’s Day is a decidedly unromantic job.

Every year, we have to dissect and exploit the theme of love in new ways that garner media attention for our clients.  And while chatting over coffee last week, my Redpoint partner Vickie and I walked down memory lane on all the crazy Valentine’s Day promotions we’ve orchestrated for clients over the years, and…damn, if we didn’t end up feeling like romance mercenaries.  Some highlights…

  • Couples jumping over fire in Armenia for Tufenkian Heritage Hotels.
  • Wife-carrying contests in Finland (the man wins the wife’s weight in beer…how romantic).
  • “Sex at Sea” Survey for Royal Caribbean International, proving why “it’s better on the water.”
  • Do Not Disturb packages at Hyatt Resorts, based on our survey that found that intimacy is the number one reason couples put that sign on their door.
  • Search for the Greatest Romantic for Princess Cruises, a contest to award a free cruise to a person who could prove worthy (with a potentially viral video, of course) of this lofty title
  • “Puppy Love” packages at Loews Hotels:  who needs a man?…spend the holiday with your dog (cue cuddly visual below).  See related post about dogs surfing at Loews…we publicists seem to do an equally good job of “exploiting” pets too.

The lesson we learned here?  Publicists – and marketers – simply don’t get to be seduced by the magic of this “Hallmark holiday” like normal people.  We’ve peeked behind the curtain far too many times to swoon when romance knocks at our own door on Feb 14.

I mean, really…what can the poor guy do?  We see a bouquet of flowers and we think:  Couples’ flower arranging classes at The Crillion…intricate rose petal patterns on the bed that spell out Will You Marry Me at La Casa Que Canta…exotic flowers arranged in bento boxes for sushi lovers…etc.  We see a box of chocolates and we think:  sensual chocolate wrap spa treatments in Maui…a diamond ring hidden in a Godiva gift box…48 hours of chocolate in New England…etc.

You get the idea.  Please don’t judge us for it…it’s an occupational hazard.  And truthfully, we’re all highly romantic and affectionate people here at Redpoint.  Just not on Valentine’s Day.

So this year, we’re going to declare February 15th “Love Your Publicist Day.”  Feel free to send us flowers, chocolate, jewelry, mushy cards…any traditional Valentine’s Day gift you wish.  Our romance-mercenary brains shut down for a while starting that day, so we’ll be quite receptive to anything you send.  But don’t wait too long past that date…magazines have long lead times, so we’ll be flipping that mercenary switch back on around July, already thinking of the newest outlandish idea to exploit love for next year.

It’s a tough job, but we do it because we ♥♥♥♥ our clients.

Yikes. This ad completely backfired.

January 11, 2011
Filed under: Marketing Strategies, The Power of Persuasion, Observations From the Field — @ 7:47 am

Yikes. This ad completely backfired.

Saw this ad (click on the image to enlarge) for the NYC Metropolitan Transit Authority on the subway last week and thought…really?  This copy was created by an ad agency and likely had to go through multiple client approvals…and no one realized how silly it makes them sound?

The wording implies…

  • All those subway issues you’ve experienced in the past due to maintenance problems…we knew about them, but we were just sitting around waiting for other things to break in that station
  • After being in existence for more than a century, we’ve finally figured out how to manage repairs
  • And now that we’ve had this long overdue epiphany, we want you to admire us for it

I was itching to get out my Sharpie and scribble on this ad:  “Dude…reality check:  that’s your job.  Don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back for it.”

There’s a lesson to be learned here about phrasing and positioning.  When you’re touting a long overdue change to your operation that you know will please your customers, don’t sabotage the message by first reminding them that you’re late to the party.  Look forward, underscore the benefits, and do not seek glory for your efforts to finally come up to scratch.

In contrast…want to see a brilliant example of advertising?  Check out the July 31, 2010 post on redpointspeaks.com, “Less Words…More Meaning.”

Anti-social media? Three tips to faking “authentic engagement.”

January 4, 2011
Filed under: Marketing Strategies, Social Media — @ 12:24 pm

My poor nephews (14 and 11 years old) will never grow up knowing the blissful oblivion that most kids – and adults – experience with brand interaction.

Having a seasoned PR counselor for an aunt just ruins it for them completely:  they know that Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins likely did not REALLY sleep with the Stanley Cup (with his teammates “leaking” the photo online), and that the Washington Capitals’ Facebook page is not updated by the Gr8 Ovechkin himself…or the coach…or any of the players.  And during Saturday’s NHL Winter Classic game (which was a spectacular display of subtle sponsorship and cross promotional genius), you wouldn’t believe how many times the oldest one said to me “Wow Didi…look at that!  It’s all about the marketing.”  One eye riveted on the action…the other taking in all the orchestration that went into influencing the audience’s perception.  Smart kid.

But as audiences go, I think my nephews are in the minority.  Most people really DO think that the concierge they are tweeting with is actually that concierge.  And that the GM’s blog post they just read was really written by the GM of that hotel.  And that the Facebook site of their favorite brand is updated by someone who actually works there.

And sometimes, it really is…but not always, and increasingly, not often. More likely, it’s updated by someone who has been “assigned the task” of engaging the social media audiences.  This could be the PR firm, the ad agency, the internet marketing firm, or – I shudder to say – the son of the owner’s sister’s cousin’s friend, who “has time available while away at college and understands all that Facebook stuff.”

Ideally, the voice of your social media channels is someone who works at your company and has the knowledge and authority to represent your brand with your desired image.  If you don’t have or don’t want such a person onsite, here are a few guidelines to help you successfully “fake” your authentic engagement:

  1. Whoever does it needs to have experienced your offerings from soup to nuts.  If a hotel, they should have stayed, spa’d, eaten, played, seen the town/city, checked out the competition and more.  If a product, they should use it often…and also, they should be well versed in your company culture (your social media voice should match this culture).  This might be a heavy investment of time/money for you up front, but the result is worth it.
  2. If the person is not onsite, they need an open flow of communication to people onsite who can feed them up-to-the-minute news.  No snippet is too trivial, as you never know what will be relevant/handy/interesting to share with audiences in this arena.  Is someone having a birthday?  Did a customer just pay you a huge compliment?  What’s the weather like?  What’s happening in your area?  What peeks behind the scenes can be given?  Your social media audience WANTS this kind of connection to you.  Formal, untimely, promotional fluff?…not so much.
  3. A knowledge of branding, marketing, and persuasive engagement is key…as is sound judgment.  There is a trick to knowing how to promote a brand without being too aggressively promotional, and mature social skills are required to deftly orchestrate a virtual conversation, especially when negative comments may be thrown into the mix.  College interns are handy for many tasks, but sometimes, they just simply lack the “brand marketing maturity” to fulfill this social media role successfully.

Having an “outsider” be your social media voice is certainly doable – indeed, at Redpoint, we do it all the time for clients – but it must be carefully managed to ensure that, not only does it not sound fake…it is not fake.

The moral of the story?  If you want your social media effort to be successful, you simply can’t fake it.  No matter who does it…it has to be real:  real time, real voice, real passion, and real knowledge.

And if you need a litmus test to be sure your efforts are working, drop me a line and I’ll get my nephews on the case.  If you can convince those two tough critics, then you’re on the right track.

Musicians that play vegetables? Yeah, that’s AP-worthy…

December 13, 2010
Filed under: Media Relations, 15 Minutes With... — @ 4:17 pm

If Associated Press (AP) has ever mentioned your (positive) story, then you know how seductive “syndication” is in the PR world.  With just one pitch or interview, your news is showcased in hundreds – sometimes thousands – of media outlets.  Talk about bang for your pitching buck and skyrocketing click-throughs to your website.

But how do you score such a home run media placement?  Surprisingly, it’s pretty simple…if you have the right story.  We recently spent 15 Minutes With… AP Travel Editor Beth Harpaz to learn exactly what it takes to catch her attention with a pitch.

Q:  How do you decide what stories make the cut for distribution over the AP travel news feed?

A:   Well, you have to remember that the AP is first and foremost a news organization, and therefore we take a “news journalism” approach to our story selection.  Even quirky, lighthearted things are almost always anchored to a major news angle, and many of the stories I assign or write are already being covered in the news some other way.  With the British Royal engagement announcement, you’ll be seeing a lot more stories about London…around the recent World Cup, we showcased several different story angles on South Africa…when new air travel regulations are passed, we might focus on the effect it will have on upcoming seasonal travel or how travelers can adapt to the situation.  Any event, announcement, or circumstance that puts a destination in the news gives us an opportunity to extract a story for the travel feed, and the angles we select have to somehow be of interest to travelers all over the world, not just locally.  Keep in mind that half of the stories I select for the feed come – not from PR people or company representatives – but from other AP news desks in the U.S. and around the world: business, entertainment, etc.  (click here  for more AP travel pitching tips)

Q:  If someone doesn’t know you, how can they get your attention to review their pitch?

A:  I read all my emails, even from people I don’t know, and it takes me just a few seconds to decide whether or not the pitch is of interest.  A straightforward email that just says “hey, I’ve got a cool thing that might work for you” is best…there’s no need to try to be clever about it.  The subject line and first few sentences of the email should give me a snapshot of the key points, highlighting what makes your story different, quirky, or of interest to readers everywhere.  Things that make people say “wow,”…things I haven’t ever seen or heard of before…things that are unexpected…all are reasons I might possibly be interested in a story.  Case in point:  Indianapolis recently had a big annual civic festival with this year’s theme focusing on food.  Well, food festivals are a dime a dozen now all around the world, but at this one?  They had a musician performing that actually played instruments made entirely out of vegetables (if you’re interested in learning more…click here).  It was the perfect inclusion for a round up of fall events, and I also tweeted about it.  I run very few deals (i.e. “third night free”) and packages (i.e. “Blissful Spa Getaway”) so people shouldn’t waste their time pitching me on those, but I do keep an eye out for packages that are tied to events already in the news (i.e. “Eat, Pray, Love Packages” or “Harry Potter Packages” launched in conjunction with the movie releases).

Q:  How much detail should someone share in a pitch?

A:  Well, I get hundreds of emails a day and craft only a half-dozen or so stories per week.  It’s fine to send a whole press release, because it doesn’t change the amount of time it takes me to decide whether or not I’m interested.  I’ll still just spend a few seconds scanning the gist of the story to decide if it has merit for AP.  Generally speaking, the shorter the better, and if what you send is newsworthy and I want more information…I’ll ask for it.

Q:  What annoys you most about being pitched?

A:  Follow up calls.  Especially repeated follow up calls.  I do look at all my emails, and if I’m not getting back to you, it simply means I’m not interested.  I try whenever possible to respond with a “no thanks” if I’m not interested, but that’s not an invitation to ask why I don’t want it or hear the angle spun in another way.  With the flood of emails and phone calls I receive each day from PR people and others pitching stories, I don’t have the time to explain to everyone why I’m not interested.  If I send a “no thanks” email, people should just be glad they received closure.  Sometimes, however, I will respond with further instructions for the person to contact me at a later date to revisit the story…and I don’t waste people’s time with stuff like that.  If I ask for that, I mean it.  And one more thing:  I don’t normally do “general, informational interviews,” especially in person.  PR people often pitch me that their client’s CEO is in town, and can they come by my office for a chat?…or try to get me to spend some phone time with a client on a get-to-know-you kind of call.  To me, it’s rare that these types of interviews have a point.  I will do interviews when a particular angle is on my radar screen, but otherwise, I don’t often go on “fishing expeditions” for other news stories.  So many timely and relevant stories land on my desk every single day that I have no need to spend my time in this way.

Q:  How do you decide when you can write a story “from your desk” and when someone needs to go out into the field to experience things first hand?

A:  We try to give coverage to things long before they happen, which gives travelers the opportunity to plan a trip to experience them.  In the Indianapolis example described above, it was more important that we cover it BEFORE the date, than to go experience the festival and write about it after the fact.  But when we’re doing a destination or neighborhood story, or something that’s a perennial or seasonal story, it’s always my preference to send a reporter and photographer to experience the story first hand.  In the case of the “Mud Season Getaways in New England” story you pitched me on a few years ago, I could have just done a round-up of the hotel packages offered, but the unexpectedness of the story seemed worthy of a broader perspective.  You don’t think of mud as a reason to travel – more like a reason to stay away – so it was the “man bites dog” aspect of the pitch that attracted me.  It was worth my sending in a regional AP stringer/photographer to explore the larger story.  When I have the resources and a local AP person to tap for on-the-ground research, I always prefer that to “desk stories.”

Last Q:  So, what’s one thing that’s on your radar screen right this very moment?

A:  Ireland.  I’m swirling around the idea that “Ireland is the new Iceland,” so I’m open for any and all story ideas about Ireland right now.

Want to try your hand at pitching Beth?  Email her at bharpaz@ap.org, and follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AP_Travel.

 

What your brand says about you when you’re not “branding”…

November 29, 2010
Filed under: Observations From the Field, Branding Strategies — @ 9:51 pm

Last week on the subway, I saw a guy listening to a Sony Walkman.  Like…with a cassette tape in it.  (note to blog subscribers 21 and under…ask your parents what a cassette tape is)

Not an iPod…or even a Discman.  A Walkman.  And he wasn’t studying it like it was an exciting artifact.  He was just sitting with it in his lap, listening to the music, and bopping his head along with the beat in the carefree way that long-time subway riders often do.

It intrigued me.  And as a marketer, something seemed odd to me…out of place.  Everything about this guy screamed young, modern, SoHo sophisticate with money.  Designer glasses, Swiss Army backpack, messily-stylish haircut.  Trendy…but not vintage.  He definitely wasn’t going for a “defiant throwback” look.  But he clearly LOVED music, and it seemed that any moment, he might start to boogie down in spontaneous performance.

So…what gives with the Walkman?  Why did this guy not have the latest version of iPod?

I confess.  The branding disconnect overwhelmed my curiosity.  And I had to know the story of the Walkman.  So I asked him about it.

The answer?  So simple.  He helped his parents move the weekend prior and while packing up his room, he found his old Walkman and some of the “Gary’s Groovy Mix” tapes he made in high school.  So he was just reminiscing.  And then he showed me the zillion gigabyte iPod he normally uses.  Mystery solved, and my raised eyebrow returned to its usual position.

This got me thinking about the way a brand projects itself.  People form an impression with just a single point of contact, and sometimes they catch you at a moment when you’re not in “branding mode.”  Like when you continue to use leftover collateral material with your old logo/tagline on it to delay spending money on the new stuff.  Or when your hotel has two simultaneous wedding receptions, so your regular dining room guests “will just have to understand” that service will be a little slow that night.

Or when you know that your website’s home page is a mess…but you just don’t have time to deal with it right now.

Or when you didn’t spend the money on just the right photo shoot…so your marketing materials never quite do your brand justice.

In that one second that you relaxed your brand standards, someone formed an impression of you…and it probably wasn’t the one you wanted.  Upholding a brand’s image is a 24/7 job, and while limited resources often force us to make less-than-desirable choices, we’ve got to be fierce about protecting our brands.  Those first-impression disconnects can turn people away before we ever get them engaged, and not everyone is curious (nosy?) enough to ask the your-brand version of… “Dude, what gives with the Walkman?”…and give you a chance to explain.

So…learn a lesson from Gary.  You may be inadvertently sabotaging your own brand image.  And while it didn’t matter to Gary what I thought of him during that three-stop subway ride (seriously…a boogie down was imminent), I’ll bet my brand new iPod that first impressions matter to YOUR brand…and your bottom line.