Standing out in a crowd. What crowd?

One of the biggest problems for any marketer is getting people’s attention. OK, great products, customer-focused messages, enticing offers and amazing customer service aren’t easy. But once you have all those other things, you have to do is get noticed.

Yesterday, I was reading Seth Godin’s blog. Seth knows how to get noticed, but that’s not my point… at least not entirely. He was describing his alternative MBA program. In his words, “Unaccredited, residential, free and six months long. A new way to learn about a new way of doing business.”

Most of the nine “graduates” left the program ready to start or grow their entrepreneurial companies. One, was determined to land the best job ever. What makes Susan Lewis different is her approach. She isn’t submitting hundreds of résumés (crowd), she’s inviting potential employers to apply to her (what crowd?).

Make shrinking dollars work very hard.

Seth Godin tells a great story…

25 years ago, driving cross country to go to my first day of work at Spinnaker Software I was the 30th employee I drove through Chicago. And I passed a Spinnaker billboard. Wow! This company was going somewhere if they had billboards all over the country. When I got to work in Boston two days later, I discovered that this was the one and only billboard they had in the country, strategically erected on the road to the big CES trade show.

When I read it, I thought how important it is for a company with limited resources — almost every company in today’s economy — to pick its battles well. One billboard on the right road at the right time. Brilliant!!

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Does advertising really work?

This morning, Karen Renzi blogged about a discovery she made last week in the sketches of her 5-year-old daughter. In her words, “In the top is a “house” on blue, next a “fan” on pink, and last but not least, on the orange: Verizon. Ahh, the power of the brand: inspiring young minds everywhere.”

Ha! By the mid-80s, I’d been in the ad agency biz for several years. I was cynical about the effectiveness of my own snappy copy and “stunning” visuals. I figured I knew all the “tricks” so I couldn’t be tricked myself. Then, I found myself in a Home Depot one Saturday morning. A guy asked what I thought of the lawn mower we were both looking at. I didn’t have a clue, had never owned this kind of mower, didn’t even have a lawn. But there I was, telling this guy all about it… selling the thing like I was gonna get some huge commission if he took one home.

Yes, it’s a little scary that Karen’s little one is drawing Verizon’s logo on a Post-It note, but it’s harmless enough. At least she’s not selling lawn mowers at Home Depot based on deeply engrained subliminal messages from the advertising team at Toro… yet. :-)