One could argue that a negative aspect of the growth of corporations is that when you travel across the country you will likely see the same stores and restaurants. While this does provide a great service for people who prefer safe choices when dining or shopping in a foreign place, it means that there is less variety in the marketplace. We all know exactly what we will get when we visit an Applebees or Starbucks in a different town, but we may be adverse to taking a risk with a restaurant we have never heard of.

That is where online reviews can save the day. Online reviews provide transparency of information and you can instantly make an accurate estimation of an establishment’s quality because you can see how satisfied other people have been in the past. This can significantly mitigate the risk of trying an unknown restaurant and if there are enough reviews you can have a high level of certainty about what you should expect. This information makes people less reliant on brands like Applebees which they have come to like and trust, and puts power back in the hands of mom and pops. You can contribute to saving the mom and pop business by writing local reviews to share your experience whenever you can.

I recently learned about the relatively new marketing show This Week in Marketing from the ThisWeekIn network. This episode’s guest is Rand Fishkin from Seattle’s SEOMoz. I’m looking forward to checking out some more episodes.

Interesting stat from the conversation: There are over a billion searches per day on Google and about 85% of search result clicks are for organic results.

Here is a cool infographic summarizing the key concepts from Guy Kawasaki’s book Enchantment which is a book that I enjoyed.

In Delivering Happiness, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh describes his journey in building Link Exchange which sold for about $200 million and Zappos which was recently acquired by Amazon for about $1 billion. The book is written like an autobiography and is very honest and open. You learn some interesting things about him like how he quit his first job at Oracle basically because he was bored and walked away from 20% of his $40 million share of Link Exchange because he didn’t want to stay at the company for another year. He also shares the lessons he learned and insights into his successful approach. Here are some of the marketing lessons I took away from reading Delivering Happiness:

Focus on existing customers
Early in Zappos history, the company struggled to survive and did not have money for a marketing budget. So out of necessity they focused on existing customers. This strategy worked very well as the company grew to over a billion dollars on sales, mostly from repeat purchases. According to the book Flip the Funnel by Joseph Jaffe, 75% of Zappos’ sales comes from repeat customers.

Get PR by continuously wowing your customer
Zappos gets a tremendous amount of good PR, but Hsieh says that they did not actively try to push their messages into the news. Often someone would report on something that Zappos had been doing for years and it would spread like wildfire. By doing remarkable things for their customers, employees and even vendors they received a ton of attention, even though some members of board sometimes referred to Zappos’ unique approaches as “Tony’s social experiments”.

Surprise your customer by overdelivering
One way that Zappos provides exceptional service is by providing customers with surprise overnight shipping. Some customers’ orders are delivered to their doorstep the very next morning which provides a remarkable experience worth sharing.

Create a great customer experience
Early on, Zappos made most of its profits from drop shipping products to customers, however this could result is dissatisfaction if an item on the website was not available from the manufacturer at a given time. So Zappos made the decision to halt its profitable drop shipping segment and only sell items that are held in their warehouse.

Create a great culture
Working at a call center is not typically a glamorous job and as a result many companies have disengaged employees who are directly interacting with customers. Zappos created a great culture that focuses on the people of the company, which has helped create highly engaged customer service agents that provide superior service to customers. Employees are encouraged to take company sponsored courses so that they can grow and get promoted, and Zappos consistently demonstrates that they care about their employees by paying for a funeral reception or giving every employee a Kindle when they sold to Amazon.

Ultimately people want to be happy
Tony is interested in the science of happiness and integrates findings from the field of positive psychology into his business. By providing employees with a greater purpose and opportunities for growth rather than focus on monetary rewards, Zappos employees are highly motivated. He also understands that experiences contribute to happiness more than material possession, thus the focus on customer experience. Towards the end of the book he asks the simple but often overlooked question “what is your goal in life?”. If you follow up that question with a lot of “whys”, you will eventually get to the answer that is essentially “because I want to be happy”. This revelation has lead to the latest iteration of Zappos’ brand promise, “delivering happiness”.

This article has been republished from Cool Marketing Stuff.

Rework is a great book from the founders of the successful web company 37 signals. I really like the contrarian ideas from the book like “how drug dealers get it right” because it is great to get a fresh perspective on business. I also like how Jason and David get straight to the point and don’t waste a lot of pages with fluff like most business books. There are a ton of great ideas in this book and some ideas that you will probably disagree with, but it will definitely get you thinking and possibly lead you to question some of the widely accepted ideas in business and marketing.

Take the Anti-Position
Several companies have been successful by taking an adversarial approach to their competition or the entire industry. Apple vs PC and 7-Up, the Uncola are a few examples of companies who have taken an opposing position. The authors also point out that people tend to like conflict and this can get people to pay attention.

This idea goes way back to Al Ries and Jack Trout’s classic book Positioning. When you separate yourself from the competition is helps consumers form a better idea of how you are different from others in your industry.

Marketing Is Not A Department
Jason and David say that marketing should not be a function of the marketing team but a part of everything the company does from answering the telephone to the quality of the product.

This is not a new idea but an important idea that is not talked about enough. Most companies tend to hand off responsibility of marketing to the marketing team after the product has been developed. This is wrong because if you are not thinking about marketing from the start, building a strong customer base can become infinitely more difficult.

Market Like Drug Dealers

“Make your product so good, so addictive, so “can’t miss” that giving customer a small free taste makes them come back with cash in hand…You should know that people will come back for more. If you’re not confident about that, you haven’t created a strong enough product. ”

I agree. Of course this helps if you have a really addictive product like Twitter, but if you don’t, sampling can be a great way to get people to step into the door and break down the barriers preventing people from trying something new. A mistake that a lot of companies make is that they make sampling too difficult with credit card requirements or forms with too many required fields.

Target Smaller Niche Publications

The authors advise that you shouldn’t try to spam the Wall Street Journal with press releases but rather focus on smaller niche publications.

I agree with this because niche publications typically have followers who are passionately interested in a specific topic or are the right audience for your product or service. Focusing on developing relationships with the top blogs in your industry seems like the best way to get in front of people who will likely use and recommend your product.

Marketing by Teaching

This is a great concept that suggests that by teaching your target customer about your craft or your industry you can build an audience that keeps coming back and are likely to seek you out when they have a need for your product or service. Here is a video of Jason’s presentation on this topic. “Instead of trying to outspend, outsell, or out-sponsor competitors, try to out teach them. Teaching probably isn’t something your competition are even thinking about…As a business owner you should share everything you know too.”

Don’t Listen to Your Customers

The authors argue that you shouldn’t listen to suggestions that just come from a few vocal customers. If you change because of a handful of unhappy customers, you could lose many more customers who were happy with the way things were before. “Your goal is that your product stays right for you. You’re the one who has to believe in it most”. They advise that you shouldn’t record what customers say about your product. If you hear something over and over again, then that’s when you know that is something you should pay attention to.

This article has been republished from Cool Marketing Stuff.

Just received a copy of Age of Conversation 3: It’s Time to Get Busy. I wrote a page from the last 2 editions of Age of Conversation. This year my chapter is titled “How to Convince Your Boss on the Importance of Blogs”.

Check out Age of Conversation 3 at Amazon. There are about 200 authors and business leaders who contributed including Joseph Jaffe, Drew McLellan, Beth Harte, Becky Carroll (from customersrock.net), Joe Pulizzi, Dan Schawbel, and many more.

Proceeds from the book are donated to charity.

The following post has been republished from Cool Marketing Stuff.

This is a great presentation by Simon Sinek about how some organizations are able to achieve so much more than others with seemingly the same amount of resources. Why did no one buy Gateway’s flat screens or Dell’s MP3 players? The following video, which I think marketers should watch over and over, explains why.

The most important Simon makes is that “people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it”. I love the following quotes:

“If Apple was like everyone else a marketing message might be: We make great computers. They’re user friendly. Want to buy one? …Here’s how Apple actually communicates: everything we do, We believe in challenging the status quo, we believe in thinking differently. The way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautifully designed, simple to use, and user friendly. We just happen to make great computers. Want to buy one?”

“The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have, the goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe.”

So start with why instead of what when you are rethinking your marketing strategy, and this flip can change how people think about your company and why they should do business with you.

People do business with companies that believe what they believe because of our strong tendency to want to align our actions with our self perception. This is why people who identify themselves as Republicans or Democrats, will vote against their self-interest. We don’t want to experience what psychologists call cognitive dissonance – “the uncomfortable feeling of holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously” (Wikipedia). Therefore companies that have a strong identity often become very strong brands.

I am a huge fan of Gary Vaynerchuk’s work because he is so passionate about his work and has tremendous energy. If you need a pick me up, watch any Gary Vaynerchuk video. I recommend his book, Crush It! as well.

Passion-Inspired Video & Other Creative Content (GF502)

Here are the best marketing books for 2009 listed in order of awesomeness:

1. Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs (The New Rules of Social Media) by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah

Why and how to market your business online through inbound marketing rather than outbound marketing.

2.Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson

Can free be an effective marketing strategy? Anderson explores the history of free and how companies are using free as a winning strategy.

3. World Wide Rave: Creating Triggers that Get Millions of People to Spread Your Ideas and Share Your Stories by David Meerman Scott

Makes a good argument for using social media and online marketing to market your business more effectively. Tons of excellent case studies to support the new methods of marketing.

4. The Next Evolution of Marketing: Connect with Your Customers by Marketing with Meaning by Bob Gilbreath

Bob describes a new approach to marketing in which the marketing itself is valuable. Lots of great examples of companies doing meaningful marketing.

5. Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith

Excellent book about how to use social media to build relationships with your customers and colleagues. Has been called the “How to Win Friends and Influence People” of social media.

6. Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability and Science of Customer Centricity by Avinash Kaushik

The followup to the hit Web Analytics An Hour A Day. Kaushik is the thought leader on measuring online marketing and donates all of his proceeds from the books to charity.

7. Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion by Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary Vee is one of the most successful personal brands on the web and is one of the best success stories for social media marketing. His book is more motivational than tactical but there are a lot of great ideas too.

8. Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? by Seth Godin

Linchpin describes how to thrive in the new economy that has replaced the broken factory-work model. It is more of a success book, but there are great takeaways that can help you in your marketing or business career.

9. Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive by Noah J. Goldstein, Steve J. Martin, and Robert B. Cialdini

Lots of interesting studies and examples that describe ways to be more persuasive while providing insights into the way we think.

Other books of note:

Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time

Marketing 2.0: Bridging the Gap between Seller and Buyer through Social Media Marketing

The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business

The Social Media Marketing Book

Six Pixels of Separation: Everyone Is Connected. Connect Your Business to Everyone.

Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods

Have any book recommendations to add to the list? Leave a comment!

Also see: Top 10 Marketing Books of 2008

This article has been republished from Cool Marketing Stuff

I attended the Twitter 140 conference in Seattle today…well sort of. I wasn’t physically at the conference but I watched most of the speakers’ presentations via UStream.

How to Attend A Conference Virtually
If a conference broadcasts a live stream via UStream, it’s almost as good as being at the conference (or even better). You can comment on what the speakers are talking about and see what others are saying via Twitter in real time (which UStream integrates really well). If you want to network, you can interact with others on Twitter who are using the conference Twitter tag (#140tc) or you can attend the networking event after the conference or the after party which are often free.

I wonder if there is a website that tells you about all the upcoming conferences that will be broadcasting on UStream.

You can also view past presentations at conferences by searching UStream as well as YouTube and Vimeo or Google Video. These presentations are a great source for learning although it can be hard to sort through lots of content to find the cream at the top. I have a set of marketing talks at http://coolmarketingstuff.com/video and Marketing Over Coffee has a great resource called Conference in a Box which is a set of good marketing presentations.

Ted is another great conference that puts up videos of most – if not all – of their presentations.

Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/afropicmusing/ / CC BY 2.0