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| Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Marketing Tip,
September 2013
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| The Power of Partnerships |
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Ever wonder why so many post offices in the United States have a FedEx drop box outside? Or how the Postal Service, which has been the butt of jokes about deliverability issues for decades, can guarantee next-day delivery on Express Mail?
Ever think about why some cars from different companies look almost exactly alike? Or why so many Internet marketers are always promoting certain other marketers? |
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| The answer: these businesses have organizational relationships—partnerships of some sort. These partnerships may involve operations, but can also be organized around marketing.The US Postal Service and FedEx have both marketing and operational partnerships; FedEx boxes at post offices are a marketing agreement. In the operational partnership, FedEx, with its superior logistics and tracking, transports Express and Priority mail airport-to-airport. FedEx gets to fill its planes with mail from a paying customer, and the Postal Service doesn’t have to issue a lot of refunds for failed next-day delivery. Meanwhile, both FedEx and UPS use the postal system to deliver to rural users in some remote locations—because the postal service is already going out there, six times a week, and is much more economical than making a special truck run.
In the auto industry, operational partnerships allow essentially the same car to be sold under different brands. For instance, the first car I ever bought new was a Toyota-designed 1988 Chevrolet Nova, about 98 percent identical to the Corolla of that period, but made in the US and about $2000 cheaper. Ford and Mazda, Chrysler and Mitsubishi, and other pairs have made similar arrangements.
The Internet marketers who have profited handsomely by promoting their competitors have marketing relationships (usually some sort of affiliate program). They’ve realized that when they promote each other, they become known to their competitors’ communities, and can grow far beyond what they could reach on their own. So they promote each other in their newsletters, speak at each other’s conferences, and laugh all the way to the bank. They understand that being endorsed by a trusted source is the easiest way to make a sale.
Another kind of marketing partnership—and there are many others—is one based on a strong existing brand. My own eighth book, Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green: Winning Strategies to Improve Your Profits and Your Planet, is an example. By bringing in Jay Conrad Levinson, “the Father of Guerrilla Marketing,” as a co-author, I dramatically enhanced my own credentials in ways that had been much harder with the prior self-published and unbranded version. For the rest of my life, I am a Guerrilla Marketing author—part of the best-known marketing brand in history, and able to tap into its large and well-oiled marketing machine. I’ve been able to parley this book into speaking gigs, client work, and international recognition as an expert in green marketing. Many retail businesses partner with well-known charities, for similar reasons. |
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| Speaking of partnerships…
Friends who Want to Help
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Spread Your Message to Other Languages
Yes, the section usually includes some of my own partners. Sometimes I even make an affiliate commission, as I remind you every issue.Our partner, Auerbach International, has been doing professional translations for almost 25 years, serving such “small” firms as Twitter, Home Depot and Roche. Now they can bring their expertise to you for only 8.5 cents/word. PLUS—to get you even greater exposure—they can get your translated book title registered on the major search engines of countries worldwide.
For a no-charge, no-obligation estimate, please visit https://www.auerbach-intl.com/free-quote/ Enter promo code SHS07 to get a fun gift: “Translation Bloopers from Around the Globe.”
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Green Business Owners and Marketers: Bolster Your Arguments with Facts
Did you know the green building market grew by 1,700 percent while the conventional building market shrank by 17 percent? The organic food market shot up 238 percent while non-organic food grew only 33 percent. “The Big Green Opportunity,” a new report from Green America’s Green Business Network, is crammed with rich content to help entrepreneurs tap into growth areas in the green economy. Tired of arguing with people who think going green has to be expensive, difficult, and unprofitable? Download your no-cost copy at www.greenbusinessnetwork.org/green-your-business/big-green-opportunity-report.html |
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Connect with Shel on Social Media |
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About Shel & This Newsletter
As a marketing consultant and copywriter… award-winning author of eight books… international speaker, blogger, syndicated columnist — Shel Horowitz shows how green and ethical businesses can actually be *more* profitable than your less-green competitors. His most recent book is category bestseller Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green: Winning Strategies to Improve Your Profits and Your Planet. Shel also helps authors/ publishers, small businesses, and organizations to market effectively, and turns unpublished writers into well-published authors.He was inducted into the National Environmental Hall of Fame in 2011.
Shel Horowitz’s consulting firm, Green And Profitable, is the first business ever to earn Green America’s rigorous Gold Certification as a leading green company
He began publishing his monthly newsletter all the way back in 1997, making it one of the oldest marketing e-zines (it’s changed names a few times along the way).
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| “As always, some of the links in this newsletter earn commissions—because I believe in the products and services enough to promote them (I get asked to endorse lots of other programs I don’t share with you, because I don’t find them worthy).” |
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Global Oneness Day, October 24
Your chance to listen to a LOT of the leading figures of New Thought: People like Jean Houston, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Bruce Lipton (Biology of Belief), Joan Borysenko, Neale Donald Walsh (Conversations with God), Michael Beckwith, and my humorous friend Steve Bhaerman a/k/a Swami Beyondanada. https://shelhorowitz.com/go/GlobalOneness2013/ |
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No-Charge entrepreneurial success training call series with Robert Smith
30 minutes every Friday, 12:30 pm ET/9:30 a.m. PT
• How to dominate your market using your website
• 10 ways to add up to $10,000 each month
• Building a bullet proof reputation online and increase traffic
• How to get on cnn.com and rank highly on Google
• Secrets to getting more visitors to convert
• Software that finds buyers looking for your type of product
• 3 ways to grow your business
• Get $100,000 in national and local publicity712-432-0800, passcode 980948# |
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Thursday, September 26, 4 p.m. ET/1 p.m. PT. “Incorporating Values in Copy: When, Why and What to Avoid,” Speaking at Marcia Yudkin’s No-Hype Copywriting Telesummit. She has a great lineup. No charge to attend the live calls, and a bonus session if you choose to purchase the recordings. https://shelhorowitz.com/go/NoHype/ |
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| Saturday, September 28, 10:15 a.m. “Do-It-Yourself Book Marketing,” Amherst Publishing Fair, 99 Main Street, Amherst, MA, amherstareapublications@gmail.com $10 includes all events and fair admission from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. |
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| CANCELLED: Magic of Water call with Patrick Durkin–because, to my utter shock, only one person signed up from this whole list. If you are interested in improving your water, please contact Patrick directly, Patrick AT TheWellnessEnterprise.com, with the subject line, Shel Sent Me.
Vibrant Business Summit, October 22-24. Details are still sketchy, but I like the theme and have agreed to present. I’ll have more information for you next month.
Global Movement Makers Summit
I’m honored to be included in a telesummit jam-packed with smart and dynamic speakers including C.J. Hayden (Get Clients Now), Noah St. John (Success Anorexia/Afformations), Cynthia Kersey (Unstoppable), Susan Harrow (Sound Bite Siren) and other equally bright lights. The summit runs from October 23, 2013 through November 12, 2013. I don’t know my slot yet, but I’m sure it will be sent to you if you sign up at https://globalmovementmakersummit.com
Planning way ahead: May 10, 2014, I will once again be presenting at CAPA University, a one-day book publishing program in Hartford. More info: gaffney AT kanineknits.com .
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| Another Recommended Book: Youtility |
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Youtility: Why Smart Marketing Is about Help not Hype, by Jay Baer (Portfolio/Penguin, 2013)
How do you market effectively in a world of ad-skipping tools, unsubscribe/unfollow options, and a public that feels assaulted by marketing? How do you get found online when search engines are being pushed out by prospects who get their recommendations either from their social media networks or through the iPhone avatar Siri these days?
Baer says you do it with marketing so useful to the recipients that they would actually pay for it if they had to. This is what he calls “youtility,” and it’s based on providing information. Lots of information.
He sees this as a natural evolution from old-style, advertising-induced “top-of-mind awareness” through “frame-of-mind awareness” based on being found when the customer is already in a buying mood, through pull tools like Yellow Pages and search engines, to “friend-of-mine awareness,” where corporate messaging has to compete with recommendations and other messages from friends and family, and your message has to be as warm and friendly and sincere as theirs.
Youtility lends itself particularly well to mobile phone apps. For example:
- An in-store product locator/coupon provider that helps you locate exactly what you need as you walk the aisles; no more forced walks to the back of the store in the hope that you’ll be enticed along the way
- A children’s hospital’s car seat selection app that recommends specific models based on your child’s height, weight, age, etc.
- A toilet paper brand’s guide (amplified by data submitted by users) to clean vs. scuzzy public restrooms
But youtility doesn’t have to be app-based. A taxi driver hands out a paper guide to attractions and restaurants in his city. An entrepreneur creates video reviews of frozen food entrees. And a top hotel chain uses live monitoring of social media to respond to all sorts of questions about destinations near their hotels, whether or not it’s going to bring an immediate sale.
Baer says the hallmarks of good youtility tools are self-service, radical transparency (i.e., putting the customer’s immediate interest ahead of your own, rather than pushing, pushing, pushing for a sale), and comprehensiveness. And ideally, the tools become more useful because they factor in the prospect’s exact location and situation, along with external factors such as season of the year; thus, YOU must understand how and why your market likes to access information, and be there when they’re looking for what you offer. Also, include your employees; design youtility for them, and they can become your most powerful and enthusiastic evangelists.
Baer, a long time authority in the social media world, also has a lot to say about right and wrong ways to do social media, and about researching your market. One interesting idea he has is to let Google help you figure out what terms and competitors to monitor by not fully filling in your search terms; Google’s suggestions may surprise you and open up new possibilities. And he’s big on measuring both the tangible, easily measured returns, and the far less easily measured intangibles (such as how many people who got a tweet back from that hotel became favorably disposed toward that hotel brand for their next trip).
And very appropriately, he asks marketers to think globally. He notes that the Asian smartphone market is three times as large as that in the Americas.
Sometimes, though, he forgets that some of these high-touch but also high-tech approaches can go over the line. He reports, for instance, on ad serving software that allows a bus to display different ads as it approaches different locations, based on poling the devices of pedestrians nearby. While I haven’t had any illusion that we have any real privacy since about 1978, frankly, I still find that creepy.
Baer’s key message is not to worry about being amazing; the bar keeps getting pushed higher and it’s very hard to maintain your status in that rarified air. Instead, focus on being consistently useful, and the results will outperform the occasional bits of amazingness.
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