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We have all seen them – the ubiquitous product demonstration. Cuts through boots and can still cut through a tomato. Picks up things that you normally would use a dustpan for. Put on this cream and instantly look like a Hollywood movie star.  Wave this magic wand and suddenly be 25 pounds lighter, 15 years younger and a supermodel (OK that last one may have been a fantasy).

Product demonstrations are the bread and butter of selling. If people know how to use your product and can see what it does, then you create more sales.

But what about a product for which you can’t demonstrate the properties? What if it is taboo to show the product in actual use. This is the problem that has faced ad agencies for decades. One of the hardest categories to do a product demonstration for is “feminine hygiene” products (pads and tampons to mere mortals). You can’t show them in real use and the use of blood is even more taboo. Who can remember the wonderful blue liquid of years past? For a while as a kid I was sure that “blue blood” royals really did have blue blood and were used in pad demonstrations – but I digress.

You see women are very loyal to their products. They generally choose a brand when they start their cycle in their teens and are reluctant to change unless something major happens (like their brand is out of stock at the Supermarket).

Smart companies know this and woo pre-teen girls with free product samples,  information and funky websites – hoping to capture brand loyalty at an early stage. Cigarette advertising has nothing on the campaign tow in the hearts of pre-teen girls. For a time our house was awash with free samples from feminine hygiene companies.

Regular TV ads were more to reinforce brand loyalty and didn’t make much a dint in sales … until now. Clemenger BBDO in Melbourne have created one of the most memorable product demonstration ads that has “gone viral”. The ad is designed to demonstrate the extra stick factor of Libra Invisible pads – and does it brilliantly.

It is being uploaded to You Tube, it has its own Facebook Fan Page and blokes around Australia have taken to covering themselves in Libra pads for photos (that are uploaded to blogs, Facebook pages and assorted other places). The local High School has reported a number of boys turning up to school covered in Libra pads. It is the hottest topic in hairdressing salons. It seems like everyone is talking about it, with about 95% positive response.

So what is all the fuss about?

They have taken a taboo and made it funny … really funny. They have memorable characters.  Quotable lines and a twist.  Brilliant marketing!

What do you think?

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter

Builders homes that are never finished. Mechanics cars that never seem to get serviced. Doctors who are regularly sick. These archetypes are so well ingrained into our psyche that you could be forgiven for thinking that it is normal for businesses to stuff up what they tell other people to do.

But … what about if businesses actually did their own “thing” really well. What if the car detailers car was always immaculate. If a web developers website was always the best in their field. If writers regularly wrote and shared their writing with clients.

What if you “be the brand that you sell? ” That’s the question that a colleague of mine (Brandrally) posed the other day – and I loved it! Doesn’t it make sense that your business should walk your talk?

So now the question for your business. What do you want your brand or business to be known for? How can you make sure that you do that 100% of the time every time? No exceptions!

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter

Testimonials are great for business. They sing your praises and help potential clients understand what it is like to do business with you. They are so powerful that the FTC in the USA implemented a whole raft of regulations and restrictions around how to use testimonials in marketing.

In the past few years video testimonials have been all the rage, which means popping your favourite clients in front of a camera and getting them to talk about their experience of working with you. Seeing “in the flesh” a real person talking in a positive way about your business is more powerful than written testimonials alone.

But … and this is a huge but … not every video testimonial that is filmed should be used. This is my favourite example of one of the worst testimonials I have seen – made even funnier because it is Ian Healy (ex-Australian cricketer and accomplished media commentator) talking about his web company. So what? Well the web company uploaded it to You Tube.  OK, Ian may be taking the mickey out of the whole process and trying to be funny with his comments, but you judge for yourself (from about 31 seconds in), whether you would like your client telling the world that “you can’t measure anything they do”, “results … well who knows”, “the company is a little top heavy” and other gems.

If you are going to use video testimonials, you may want to talk with your clients before hand. Help them gather their thoughts and don’t be afraid to do a few “takes”.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter

Have you ever looked at the humble shopping trolley? I mean really looked at it and wondered “who the heck invented it”? Yes, I know shopping is my least favourite contact sport and I will do anything to avoid grocery shopping, which is why one day I was pondering this question while I studiously avoided thinking about the wonky wheels and while dodging the local kids who were treating the shopping aisles like a roller derby.

So I went hunting … and discovered a brilliant book by Rudolph Brash called “A Bee in Your Bonnet?“  This quirky little book covers the history and meaning of a whole litany of useless phrases as well as useful information about the inventor of many modern day marvels … including the shopping trolley.

Now I know you are dying to find out who to thank (blame) for the shopping trolley – it was Sylvan Goldman in the 1930’s. Mr Goldman owned a supermarket in Oklahoma City and figured that people only ever bought as much as they could carry in their shopping bag. He thought that if he could make it easier for people to carry more, they would buy more, so converted a folding chair by adding wheels and a basket and hey presto – the shopping trolley was born … And people ignored it in droves.

Apparently people were afraid to use the new fangled invention – they thought they would run into things. Undeterred, Mr Goldman thought for many a long night on how to get people to use them. So what did he do to get over people’s fears?

1) He hired a pretty girl to hand people a trolley the moment they entered the store instead of the older shopping baskets

2) He advertised the new invention widely in the papers so the early adopters would know about it

3) And (drumroll please) he hired actors to smilingly wheel around fully laden trolleys through the shop and carpark

Mr Goldman went on to patent the idea and died in 1984 a multi-millionaire – all from the one simple idea.

What can you learn from the humble shopping trolley?

• A good idea is not going to make you money unless people want it and use it.
• There’s ways around many problems if you are creative enough.
• People value the opinion of other people – if they see other people enjoying your product it makes them more willing to try.
• You need to tell people about your creations – positive press is still important.
• Sex sells

It’s good to see modern day supermarkets going back to the basics. We are all now used to the massive trolleys – and until recently people only had the choice of the behemoth trolleys or a small red basket. Note the introduction of a range of smaller trolleys that bridge the gap. People have taken to them in droves and average basket sale has increased as a result. Everything old is new again!

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter

KQ Christmas Lights - Arana Hills

I confess. I am a Christmas Light junkie. It all started when I was a small child, who would spend hours each Christmas falling asleep in the half dark under the Christmas tree – looking at the twinkling coloured lights. I would be surrounded by the scent of pine needles, cinnamon cookies and joyful anticipation of a new doll or colouring book as I dozed.

When I had my own cherubs I wanted to share this pleasure, so I bought a stunning long string of lights for our Christmas tree. Then, one Christmas evening, I took a drive around our neighbourhood and spotted a house all sparkling and magical – covered in lights. I was hooked from that moment!

It all started with one icicle set of lights for the gutters.  My kids eyes sparkled as they proudly stood outside looking at their lights. “Nice lights” said the neighbour driving past “Yes, but wait till next year” I said.

Next year came, and the one strand of icicle lights had bred over the winter and spring. We now had our first large boxful of lights and it took a whole hour to put up. “Nice lights” said the neighbour driving past “Yes, but wait till next year” I said.

By now it was becoming an obsession. The following year they had bred again – 4 large boxes waiting to be strung up. When they were finally switched on the kids from the neighbourhood appeared as if by magic. “Nice lights” said the neighbourhood kids “Yes, but wait till next year” I said.

I discovered Boxing Day sales, Ebay and specialist Christmas lights shops. We now needed to build racking in the shed to store all of our boxes of lights. That was the first year we entered the 4KQ Christmas Lights competition and it took a whole day to install. As soon as the lights were switched on during the first night the whole street appeared.

Over the coming nights people from all the surrounding streets appeared. We met neighbours that we had only nodded to in the past. We grew to know the names of each of the local kids (and their assorted dogs). We were suddenly a core part of the community. “We’re the ones with the lights” we would say – and people would knowingly nod.

Then I realised something strange – the lights were brilliant for my business.  People who stopped to talk about the lights also asked about our business. As a result we were solidly booked for January/February each year just from the lights as marketing. It’s the best direct marketing I do all year (and the most fun).

“Nice lights” said the first of the people from the 4KQ Christmas Lights  “Yes, but wait till next year” I said.

Each year our lights grew in size and complexity. We had one dark year when my stepmother died – I didn’t feel like putting up lights that year. We were then hit by the massive storms last year from The Gap and lost a heck of a lot of our lights from our roof and our display. The baubles ended up somewhere floating out to sea, most of our blow-moulds were smashed and our net lights shredded.  Ah well, I thought. I really had wanted to replace the old bulbs with LED ones anyway.

This year we are brighter than ever and took out a Highly Commended in the 4KQ Christmas Lights competition. We are averaging 200 people per night (not including all the locals) and many more cars. Most get to know the name “Heart Harmony” on the way past.  Yes, it did take two whole weekends to install and for those budget minded amongst you, it costs about an addition $15-$20 in electricity for the quarter to run.

The majority of our neighbours are right behind us, although there are one or two in the culdesac who are not as happy with the cars and buses as we are.

We will never win the competition, but we are now at a place of magic.We have a letterbox to the North Pole and write back to all the local kids with their wishes to Santa.

We love watching the tiny babies enjoying their first Christmas, the excited squeals of the toddlers running to explore the garden, the adults just standing and watching in peace for a few moments – that is our magic of Christmas. It is our way of giving back to the wonderful community we live in.

So, if your 4KQ Christmas lights bus happens to be going through Arana Hills, we’ll be out there to say g’day.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance copywriter and Christmas elf

I’m about to let you into a secret in the marketing industry, one that is only talked about late at night after a few too many red wines. Not every marketing campaign works. Every marketer has failures – campaigns that sparkled with promise, where all the research and market testing came back positive and yet when the campaign launched you could hear the crickets chirruping (at best), or the campaign was roundly condemned across the media (at worst).

Think back a few years, when Coke had lots of wonderfully happy people trying to “teach the world to sing in perfect harmony”. People whistled and sang the jingle on the streets, everyone knew the campaign, and yet the sales of Coke were pretty much constant.This is known as a marketing fail.

Yesterday Westpac Bank tried to explain mortgage interest rates by a cartoon. In this cartoon mortgages were seen as being like a person making banana smoothies. I am sure it seemed like a great idea at the time, but for a short while the Tiger Woods affairs played second banana to an ad campaign by a bank in terms of public condemnation.

Of course there are self inflicted failures – where a beautifully designed website draft is “run past a few people”, usually relatives or friends, and suddenly the design is converted to a patchwork rug complete with kittens and music. There are direct mail pieces (that are never mailed), ads designed to run as an A4 size being printed as an eight of a page, keyword research informing clients what the most searched terms on the net are only to be told to use non-ranking words as the main keywords and so on. Every marketer has war stories they generally only share within the industry – which is a nice way of saying any marketer worth their salt has failed at times.

So how do you recover from non self-inflicted wounds in your marketing. Westpac showed the way yesterday.

1. Pull the ad. Stop showing it wherever possible.
2. Return to your control ad (the one that may be old but you have proven it works) until you can create something else.
3. Apologise to your customers. If the ad was really a poor choice, then a humble public apology will help.
4. Review the ad development process to learn from any mistakes and to listen to the feedback.
5. Review your internal control process. Who has the final delegation on signing off a campaign – were any corners cut?

Mistakes are part of life. How can you learn from someone’s mistake? (and be nice to your local Westpac Branch Manager – no bunches of bananas or lolly bananas as Christmas gifts. It wasn’t their mistake).

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter

Every year I do a few weeks of professional development to hone my skills. This year I have been completing some online internet courses – the Thirty Day Challenge with Ed Dale.   I do this one every year to keep current on the latest internet marketing trends (and it is free to do during August each year).

Myself, James Schramko & Donna-Marie Coggins

I have also been studying with James Schramko – one of the good guys of internet marketing. One of his courses I have been taking is the Underground Profit System which I have to say has been brilliant. It is a series of 8 videos with really comprehensive information about websites and traffic that I hadn’t heard elsewhere (and you won’t break the bank doing them). Even if I didn’t get an affiliate fee for recommending James’s course I would be telling all my friends about it … it is that good!

Now if you’re like me you need to lock yourself away in a darkened room for a couple of days to work with new material. My kids joke that when I am studying I descend into my cave like a hermit, only periodically opening the door to get coffee and food and then scuttling away again, while muttering about things like domains, links and traffic. This isolated state lasts until the last DVD is played and I have had a few days applying what I have learnt.

The application is the most important bit. Unless I apply some of what I studied in the few days after the course, the  course material becomes the online equivalent of a treadmill sitting in the lounge room draped with clothes and good intentions.

So the past few days I have been living in my bunker and have had some great aha moments – like how to find fantastic domain names, different website models for businesses, brilliant tools for market research (that don’t cost a cent), places to source great products, how to have videos on your site (and not crush your bandwidth), simple ways to split test to see which headlines/content gets the best results, and places to get CDs & DVDs replicated for next to nothing.

I also had a massive whack on the side of the head in relation to some simple systems to keep tabs on my website information. I knew where I could find (sort of) which company my domain name was registered with, and who hosts my websites, but passwords and expiry dates of the subscriptions? This super simple one pager put it all together for me in a super-organised way. I now have all my website details and many domains (including all my kids names .com.au and .coms) in the one folder, neatly sorted.

But my hands-down favourite bit of James’s course has been the software. Last night I put together and published 3 simple websites in 2 hours which would have taken me an entire day to do otherwise.  There would have been more but the thunderstorm meant the computer had to turn off. Now you have to remember I have some net knowledge which makes things a bit easier, but in my view even newbies to the net would be able to quickly get a great result.

Why am I telling you this? In business we need to keep on top of new developments. We need to take regular time out to sharpen our saw (as Covey would say), to learn new things and new ways of approaching our business.  When was the last time you took time out to study?  Yes, we are all busy and yes I have a mountainous backlog of emails and so on to tackle today … but it is worth it!

… And if you want to learn more about websites and the net – the two courses I have mentioned are worth doing.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance copywriter

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

Often I share tips  on great ways to grow your business, but today I am going to talk about the 100% guaranteed worst way you can market your business. It is without fail guaranteed to make you despised in the eyes of the majority of other business owners and will destroy your reputation faster than sleeping with the intern in your office.

It is of course telemarketing. Now a quick disclaimer here – back in the 80’s when telemarketing was shiny and new I was involved in this form of marketing for a time. Then it worked because people were actually excited to hear from their electricity company about anything except their bill. Now … telemarketing is the phone equivalent to spam in your email box. You just don’t do it if you want to remain credible as a business.

Yes, there have been fabulous laws passed in many countries establishing “do not call” registers for private homes. This has reduced the phone spam at home – but has passed it on to businesses. Our business is case in point – every day we get on average 5-8 telemarketing calls from people attempting to sell everything from phone plans, finance plans, toner ink, government grants and mortgages. Sure … I am keen to hand over money to people I have never met. Sort of like believing that there really is a nice man in Nigeria willing to give you millions of dollars he happens to have fallen over on a dark night.

Over the years my approach to these unwanted approaches (termed harassment in Human Resources parlance) has gone from polite to downright rude. This is one time when I am actually hanging out for additional government regulation to create a do not call register that businesses can list themselves on.

Until then … if you seriously want to market your business don’t take up telemarketing. I don’t care how attractive it sounds – it is the same as walking up to everyone in the bar and asking them to sleep with you. Your business is going to get a lot of whacks across the side of the face for every acceptance.

Until next time

Ingrid

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance writer

Lots of people believe that colours create emotions in people. I know I believe it. Many years ago as an undergrad psychology student I used to submit my assignments in different coloured manilla folders depending on the content. I would use blue folders if I thought I had done a great job in terms of research and well considered argument and I wanted the Professor to take their time reading it. I used to use red folders if I knew the material looked good on the surface but wouldn’t stand up to deeper scrutiny (wanting the Professor to mark on first impressions).

There are reams of articles written and marketing materials all chosen to tap into the psychology of colour – but where is the scientific proof behind the beliefs?

New Scientist recently reviewed some scientific studies on the use of red and blue and the results are fascinating. The studies were done using taekwondo bouts and had experienced referees score the bouts shown on video. The only difference was the colour of the clothing. In some one combatants was wearing blue and the other red – and then to another sample the clothing colours were swapped. The results  – if the bouts were not close the colours had no impact – yet in close bouts the person wearing red scored on average 13% more points than when they were wearing blue.

Scientists also studied the outcomes in the Athens Olympics in boxing, taekwondo, Graeco-Roman wrestling and freestyle wrestling. Those wearing red won 55% of the time and 62% of the time if the bout was close.

Only for individual sports you say? Well another scientist studied 56 seasons of British Soccer – and those teams whose first choice kit was red finished higher in the league and won more home games than any other colours. This study was replicated in the Euro soccer league.

Fantastic. Now you know which way to bet in footie tipping competitions, so let’s all go and put red in our marketing. Well hold your horses – it is not quite that simple.

In humans red is associated with anger and testosterone. People flush red with anger (and desire).  Tests show that we believe red is a dominant colour and more likely to win physical competitions than say white or blue.

In some other very stylish experiments, volunteers were asked to take a 5 minute IQ test. They were assigned a bogus participant number which was written in either red pen or black pen on the top of their forms. People who had their numbers written in red pen scored significantly lower that those in black.  They then gave students different coloured folders and asked them for their preferred level of difficulty for an IQ test. Students given red folders chose easier tests.

Even viewing red for just a few seconds can make people more timid. Students were told they were going to be taking either a spelling test or an analogies test and to look inside a folder to see which one. The word “analogies” or “spelling” was written on a red or green background. They were then sent to an adjacent lab to take the test, where the sign said “Please knock”. Students who had seen the red background knocked fewer times and more quietly than those given green.

More tests have shown that red on computer screens makes people physically lean away from the screen (not great it your website is primarily red in colour).

But red isn’t all bad. Red improves the results on detail oriented tasks, while blue enhances the results of creative tasks. Women are more likely to be asked for a date (and have more money spent on them in that date) if they wear red. (I have images of scientists going “pick me pick me” to run some of these studies).

So, what is being found is red is context specific. If you want to win at a physical event wear red. If you want to win the dating war – wear red.  If you are in other contexts – you may want to play with other colours rather than red to ensure you don’t give off an aggressive vibe for your product or business. Perhaps in my early days as an undergrad student I wasn’t far off the mark with my folder colours.

And to those who believe that this is all hooey  and you can control your response – there are other studies that show seeing the colour triggers release of chemicals in the body, and fires off neurons in the brain – even before you are consciously making any decisions.Your body decides even before you do!

So … time to take another look at the colours around you and work out the impact they may be having on your behaviour.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Writer

I have just been going back through some New Scientist issues. There was an interesting article on the psychology behind why sports people take drugs and while others stay clean. In summary, the series of studies referred to found:

• those motivated more by a desire to beat others had more permissive attitudes to doping than those who were motivated more by mastering their sport

• athletes who said their coaches frequently criticised them, punished them for mistakes, encouraged rivalries and gave unequal recognition to teammates had the most favourable attitudes towards doping.

They also found that those who did take the drugs did so because they felt they had to do so to compete.  They also found health concerns of taking banned substances caused very little mental concern, and yet the feelings of guilt about letting themselves and their families down weighed the most heavily.

So what? Well these studies give us an insight into a lot of other areas (and yes the purists would say we need to test each area individually to ensure there is a correlation).

The factors causing people to cheat sound a heck of a lot like a lot of workplaces. How many stock traders for example are motivated more by a desire to beat the other traders than simply master the stock-market? How many company directors want to beat the competition rather than just being great at what they do? Do these feelings encourage breaking the law?

What about managers and how they manage. How many managers either deliberately or inadvertently create rivalries between team members and other work areas? How many managers punish people for mistakes or give unequal recognition? By their actions are they creating the toxic work culture that encourages people to take short-cuts with the truth?

This leads to some other interesting ideas in terms of marketing. For example – emphasising how you are letting yourself and your family down may be more effective in cutting smoking than focusing on health warnings.

Imagine the shift in behaviour of some of our footy larrikans if the impact their drinking and partying had on their family or team members.  Video footage of fallen greats wives, kids and parents giving “victim impact” statements of how it felt to be front page news may be more powerful than bravado filled chats.

Teaching ethics or stopping shoplifting by focusing on the impact a breach has on your family may be more effective than hundreds of hours of “thou shalt not” teachings. Perhaps politicians should be shown video footage of fallen QLD politicians heading off the jail, complete with comments from their spouses and families about the impact on their lives as part of their ethics programs.

It pays to keep in touch with studies looking at unravelling human behaviour. How can you implement this in your business?

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Writer