Episode 24: Marketing
Marketing is a big, big topic with many facets. In this episode Doug and Glenn talk about ramping up enthusiasm for your brand starting with the creation of a business name that work’s its ass off for you. Ultimately your marketing investments in time, energy and dineros need to attract customers to your product or service, retain those customers, and turn them into ambassadors for your business. It’s about creating a circulatory system of prosperity! Enjoy.
Transcript
Glenn Suart 0:00
I’m a big believer in that… it doesn’t always work… but it’s an important aspect of your marketing – make your name work for itself.
Doug Ross 0:20
Welcome to Conversations on Startups, a podcast brought to you by Douglas Ross, author of the book, Spark Click Go: How to Bring Your Creative Business Idea to Life, and Glenn Suart, of Today’s Great Idea, a radio series featuring over 300 origin stories of businesses, brands and inventions that have changed the culture. Welcome to today’s conversation.
Doug Ross 0:41
Hey, Glenn. How ya doin’ today?
Glenn Suart 0:45
I’m doing great, Doug. It is a beautiful day again in Calgary, though it is a fall day.
Doug Ross 0:51
I think you’re misleading the audience. You always say it’s a great day in Calgary. I’ve lived there and even though I don’t live there now I watch the weather all the time because I have family members there. It’s just not true. Maybe every Tuesday it’s nice when we record these.
Glenn Suart 1:09
But today we’re talking about marketing. And again, another wide subject. What do you think about when you hear the word marketing? (Startups and stuff?) What… what should entrepreneurs be worried about or thinking about when it comes to marketing?
Doug Ross 1:27
Well, a few things. One would be… I had mentioned my definition of sales a couple times previously, which is a transfer of enthusiasm, and marketing, in a sense, is scaling up that same transfer of enthusiasm, as it were… I don’t think there’s anything more effective at converting a lead into a customer than a good salesperson. So you try to replicate that with some of your marketing messages, some of your materials, some of the experiences that you can provide. And increasingly we’re going to have AI assisted marketing, for sure. So I think of it that way. It’s scaled up sales [selling] in a certain way. But I take a lot of other cuts on it, including what’s the divide. There’s upstream marketing, which is everything to do with, What does the customer want and how do you tie that into the product development and service development and everything else. And then there’s downstream marketing, which is mostly – you’ve got the product and you’re now… you’re promoting it and that sort of stuff. So those are a couple of thoughts that I had on marketing with respect to startups. But my final one, Glenn, would be customer acquisition – I’m thinking about customer acquisition, just keep it simple like that. Who should we go after? And how do we attract them into our business to get going and to build momentum?
Glenn Suart 2:59
Well, that’s right, you really do want to go after the right customer, and getting that message to them is so critical. You don’t want to just market to everybody because it’s just a waste of resources. And you’re not necessarily gonna be helpful. When it comes to marketing I always like to start and think, you know, some of the obvious stuff is… is the simple things, like choosing the right name for an organization.
Doug Ross 3:33
Very important. Agreed.
Glenn Suart 3:34
Yeah ’cause a lot of, you know, businesses come up with these crazy names that don’t… that are kind of cool to say but you have no idea what they represent. So when I started my business planning business, I, you know, got the domain writemyplan.com. So, pretty straightforward, easy to go. Today’s Great Idea, you know, makes the illusion to – you know – When’s the best time to start a new business? Well, probably twenty years ago, you know, but the next best time is today.
Doug Ross 4:11
Yeah, it’s got that sense of urgency, right in the title.
Glenn Suart 4:15
So. Yeah. So I like simple and straightforward. And I’ve got a story for you about somebody, of course, who used their name very effectively to start off and they were a small organization. So let me tell you. The guy… this guy named Fred, who’s working… he’s in business school and he writes a term paper, and his professor does not share his enthusiasm… enthusiasm for this new type of business that Fred’s got. So Fred doesn’t get a very good mark. But then six years later, Fred thought he might just… it might just work if he pitched it right. So he decided to approach… the biggest potential customer for the business that he could think of. But he didn’t want them to think that he was a small operation because they were so large. So he gave his name… the company… the most impressive sounding name that he could to make himself bigger than he is, and the customer was the Federal Reserve System – the Fed in the US, and it’s the central bank. And it’s really important for the Fed to get, you know, checks and documents between all their district banks across the US as fast as possible. But at the time that often took days, so Fred pitched his idea with his new company name and the Fed was interested but in the end they said no. And so Fred though he had already got this name so he just decided to keep it and he just kept plugging away. But he soon found other clients who would take, you know, his service. And today the company has over 10 million clients and over 200,000 employees. Any ideas which business, Doug?
Doug Ross 6:07
Nothing coming to mind immediately. Millions of customers, you said?
Glenn Suart 6:13
He… he called it Federal Express?
Doug Ross 6:16
Oh, I’ve heard of those guys, yeah.
Bridget 6:19
You’re listening to Conversations on Startups with Doug and Glenn, thanks for joining us. Let’s get back to the show.
Glenn Suart 6:28
So he, Fred… Fred Smith, what he did was… he wanted to make the Federal Reserve System [a customer]… oh, I’ll call myself Federal Express. Pretty big… sounding. He had a very small startup. Using the name effectively to project yourself can be fantastic. And I… I’m a big believer in that… it doesn’t always work… but it’s an important aspect of your marketing – make your name work for itself.
Doug Ross 6:57
So do you mean by that make it descriptive of what the business does or a benefit of what the business brings?
Glenn Suart 7:05
Yes, if possible… if it’s reasonable, and especially if the domain name’s available – ’cause domain names are very critical these days. If you can, without going overboard, it’s really important to come across… in the case of FedEx – which is now of course shortened – but federal was a… was… meant you were across the country. That was important to certain customers. And that’s what you would want to have in a name.
Doug Ross 7:37
Nice. Makes sense. I guess if you think of the name of our podcast, it follows with that as well. Maybe not, Hey, we are global (although we are), but Conversations on Startups is descriptive. It says what we do during our discussions and it was available, as well, as a URL – so we have that… site name. So those are a couple of important things. I suppose people if they were… well, should they be concerned about trademarks? Should they trademark their name? And should they… to what degree should they make sure that their name is unique, and / or doesn’t violate somebody else’s name that they’re using just in business practice in a similar field?
Glenn Suart 8:23
Yeah, of course. I think you… you do everything to protect your intellectual property and that includes your name. If it’s… if it’s worthy of trademarking, absolutely. If… if you get the domain get the variations on the domain. It sounds so obvious, but a lot of people don’t do these things. They think that no one else is going to use their name and somebody else does a knock off of it. So you got to… choose a name and then protect it as best you can. That’s the way I think about it, you?
Doug Ross 9:03
Yeah, I think this… I think we should look just a little bit beyond typing in the domain. I think that is an important step. I take your point too about buying the domains that are similar, perhaps the.net, that kind of thing. That makes sense and is usually not expensive. And Glenn you and I are often talking about things that aren’t expensive, but are smart that you can do early on with your business. I think if you start using it, you should be okay. Trademark it if you think it’s really important, but just by using it, you are protecting it to a certain degree. Try not though to step on someone else’s toes because you might have to backtrack later and change your name and you really don’t want to do that. So coming up with a name is important. I would say unless, you know… on these names that don’t make any sense [at first] there are… there are times when they do make sense – over time. So if you’d asked me in 1985 or ’90 to Google something, I would have said, Excuse me.
Glenn Suart 10:08
Of course.
Doug Ross 10:09
What do you mean, Glenn? So some of these seemingly meaningless names become meaningful over time. All these drug names tend to be strange – not all of them, but a lot of them are strange and acquire meaning over time. You may not have that time though, as a startup, you may need something more descriptive. So the name is important in marketing. What else for startup folks, for entrepreneurs, in terms of marketing should they be thinking about?
Doug Ross 10:38
Hey podcast listeners, we’re gonna take a short break now. If you’re enjoying the show, feel free to invite your friends, remember to subscribe, and if you want to help spread the word leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app. Each episode of Conversations on Startups focuses on a single topic. If you want to comment on something you’ve heard on the podcast, or suggest a topic for us to cover in a future episode, send an email to: go@todaysgreatidea.com or douglas@sparkclickgo.com. Glenn and I appreciate you and hope you find our uncut and unrehearsed stories, perspectives, and tips helpful. Speaking of helpful stuff-let’s pick up where we left off.
Glenn Suart 11:23
Well, if you’re… you’re the target customer for a business, like you’re the one that you’re trying to pitch, what are you looking for? So think about it from that perspective, and how would you like to be reached out to? What venues would you expect to see the company in? Or how would they best communicate with you? If you think about it from being a customer, it certainly helps.
Doug Ross 11:56
Makes sense and go to where your customers are now. Follow the eyeballs – is an expression I know I brought up before. [Yeah] But people get their information from different places so you need to follow that or at least do a basic amount of research. Talk to your customers or people that you’re targeting and see what they do. Is it mostly social media. Social media marketing itself, of course, not surprisingly, has become a separate sub domain, within marketing. I think it’s gonna be going to become even bigger -we’re going to be seeing more companies tied up with social media. Website is obviously a critical element of that – if you can get to them [your customers] there. There’s old fashioned advertising, print, radio (less and less0 but depends on your audience. If it’s a targeted… targeted audience, might be… might be appropriate. It could be on a podcast, could be advertising there. But I take your point, figure out how people like to be communicated with in your target audience and get your messages out there. Okay, so let’s say you’ve done that well, Glenn. So what messages, what’s important when it comes to messaging?
Glenn Suart 13:15
Excellent… Excellent. I always tell people, and… that… What is it you want to talk to people about? And invariably a lot of people come back and say, Oh, it’s the features. They don’t say that. But that’s what they talk about. And it’s not… people aren’t buying the features, what they’re buying is the benefits that your product or service is offering. So the message should be the benefits of what it is not the features. Does that make sense to you?
Doug Ross 13:52
Well, it does. And I think of those benefits on different levels too so you’ve got functional benefits. This car gets you from A to B. You’ve got emotional benefits. You will feel good driving in this car. And other levels of benefits. I think that’s absolutely true and takes people way above just talking about the features. So I think that’s great… The other thing I think that’s important is that people more and more are looking for an affiliation of some sort. So telling the story of your company, perhaps the origin story, perhaps something about how you’re doing… doing things in in a more environmentally friendly manner. How you’re giving back. These sorts of things can draw people in and keep them affiliated with your brand. So I think that’s happening more and more and that’s a little bit different or would work in concert with talking about benefits of the product or service.
Glenn Suart 15:01
That’s a good description.
Doug Ross 15:03
Thank you.
Glenn Suart 15:04
I…, you know… there’s just so much to marketing but it all comes down to whatever you’re gonna do… is… try it out, test it, see if you can get some reaction. Too many people just go and spend money and think, or they have a gut feeling and that’s what it’s going to be. If you can – and there’s lots of, you know, we could talk about the depth of this in more detail, of course – is… testing your marketing with your target audience to see if it does actually resonate with them. Because if it doesn’t, you’re just wasting your money and time.
Doug Ross 15:45
Absolutely. And it doesn’t have to be complicated that testing. Just [No] take it to a prospect. Hey, what do you think of this brochure, or this message, or this ad, or any of these sorts of things, or just put it out there and see what you get for… for reaction. I think it’s always important to have an objective when it comes to marketing, What is your objective? So it could be when starting out, awareness, Do people even know that we exist? If they don’t, then that’s going to be a big part of your initial sort of campaign. If they’re aware of you, and they’re… they’re not yet trying your service, then your your focus could be on trying your service or your product. So I think having an objective, a clear objective is really important. And then ultimately you as the entrepreneur, the… the marketer, you are trying to change behavior in some way. So it’s, Use this product, it’s… it’s perhaps Use it again. Maybe it’s getting people to use it for a particular application that they haven’t done before. And Glenn you’ve brought up many stories recently, or not recently necessarily but throughout our podcast episodes, on this type of thing. WD 40 is what you’d mentioned, I think, last time and there was an industrial use but then you wanted to bring this to consumers, okay, well, you better say to consumers, Hey, and one way you can use this, Squeaky… squeaky car door? Hey, WD 40. So give them a use case, and… and you’re really trying to change behavior of people in some way ultimately as a marketer.
Ali 17:33
You’re listening to Conversations on Startups with Doug and Glenn, merci pour nous avoir joindre.
Glenn Suart 17:42
You know, think of all the things we’ve just talked about in this episode. There’s a lot of points we’ve just covered in a very short period of time. And I don’t think we’ve even touched on a whole bunch of other ones. Marketing. We might need three or four more episodes, you know, just to go down here. I guess the summary, for me, for this kind of episode about… talking about marketing is: be thoughtful, be careful and make sure that your marketing is aligned to – as you said to your mission and objectives and that includes everything from the name to the the execution and knowing who your customers are.
Doug Ross 18:27
Yeah, I think that’s a great summary, Glenn. So… okay, terrific. Agree, we scratched the surface, we will cover some of these sub topics or these smaller branches off the tree in future episodes. You know, if you think of the just the types of marketing that exist out there, scarcity marketing, exclusivity marketing, personalized marketing, social media marketing… there’s so many different kinds. So it’s a big, big topic. Ultimately, you’re just trying to attract that customer, retain them and turn them into somebody who is an ambassador for your brand. Because, end of the day, What’s the best marketing you can get out there? It’s as old as dirt Glenn? Word of mouth.
Glenn Suart 19:20
Yep. Everybody loves word of mouth. Nothing better. When a client calls your potential client [and] says, Hey, so and so told me to call you. Best thing in the world.
Doug Ross 19:31
It’s very powerful. And that’s what you’re trying to do and… and sort of accelerate when it’s happening out there naturally. I heard this phrase today… you’re… this… really strange phrase: circulatory system of prosperity. And this is what you’re trying to do with your business is to build that momentum. So customers that are satisfied tell other people and you get more customers and then it builds in a virtuous cycle so that’s really what you’re trying to do as a marketer. This conversation… Glenn opens up a lot of avenues, but hopefully we’ve offered some practical tips to folks as well. So great summary. I’m Doug Ross, we wish you well. We’ll see you next time.
Glenn Suart 20:17
See ya.
Doug Ross 20:27
Conversations on Startups is a production of Glenn Suart and Douglas Ross. We hope you’re having fun listening but mostly that you take action on your business idea. For more inspiration visit our websites: todaysgreatidea.com and sparkclickgo.com. Another episode of Conversations on Startups will drop soon, or is already available to binge. Thanks for joining us, and remember to subscribe and invite your friends. See ya next time!
Transcribed by https://otter.ai