The biggest opportunity in marketing right now (and for a long, long time) is… WOMEN.
Women buy big-time. Women spend men’s money and women spend their own money. They are not a specialty market. They are “the market.”

I was on the phone with a female client a while back and she asked whether it was important to communicate in her marketing that she was a woman. I told her that it was more important to communicate TO women.

Here are some crazy statistics that should shake up your approach no matter what business you are in:

Women buy or make the key buying decision in over 80% of purchases. And they influence over 95% of all purchases.

That means $7 trillion of the $11 trillion United States GDP is influenced by women.

In other words:

3rd largest economy in the world = American men at $4 trillion a year.
2nd largest economy in the world = all of Japan at $4.3 trillion a year.
1st largest economy in the world = american women at $7 trillion a year.

That’s staggering.

Scoreboard: Women =1; World Economy = 0

So this begs the question: Why aren’t more companies addressing this HUGE opportunity?

I don’t know why I’ve been picking on fast food lately, but here we go…

Arbys spent $85 million promoting an oven mit with the voice of Tom Arnold because they hoped it would cause more people to go to their restaurants and buy food.

My question is:

What could possibly be in an animated commercial with Tom Arnold that will get you to get in your car and drive to Arby’s to order food?

Two times I’ve gotten sick from eating Arby’s. $85 million and Tom Arnold doesn’t help me get over that.

But an agency somewhere told them they needed a “mascot.” McDonalds has Ronald, Burger King has the King, Arby’s has… an oven mit.

The marketing budget was wasted. The lesson: How their employees handle their food is worth more than $85 million.

Ten Thousand Things is a super great design blog that I have revisited several times. This post in particular lays out some amazing resources including what makes good web design, sites to jar you out of creative block, whitespace theory, and professional fonts. Have fun.

*Bad Marketing: Arby’s

*Women

*Technology Isn’t Clever

*Marketing is…

*Good Marketing: Smurf Turf

I put up my best time for a 10K last night. It was after taking six days off to rest. But man I paid for it. I’m hurtin’.

What’s the fastest growing business in the mortuary industry?: Turning your loved one’s remains into a diamond ring.

LifeGem is the world’s first company offering synthesized diamonds made from the carbonized remains of loved ones or pets.

So why is it good marketing? Because it’s remarkable!

Maybe a little strange for my likes… but considering people are paying $14,000 for a one-carat diamond says enough.

LifeGem also completed a diamond from the remains of Beethoven’s hair in September of 2007 and donated the proceeds to charity.

I’m not joking.

People feel it’s worth $14,000 to say, “You like my ring? It’s my grandmother!”

Marketing Is… A Process, not a Moment.

Permission is gained over time, not in an instant.

But the fact is people want a quick response, “Can’t I just buy a list? Can’t I just send out a bunch of postcards?”

Yeah. But that’s not marketing. That’s interuption. That’s SPAM.

Marketing is about building a relationship.. building permission.

And that involves a process, not a moment.

Had to get a pic of my new nephew up on the site before I jumped on the plane. He’s 6 lbs. 14 oz. and perfect.

You might not know that the term SPAM developed from a 1970 Monte Python sketch where the characters are trying to order breakfast from a menu that contains SPAM in every dish. The characters repeatedly sing “SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM” to mock the notion of pushing spam on everyone whether you want it or not.

We are all familiar with email spam and junk mail spam that we deal with on a daily basis. But I think the category is much broader than that.

Throw in tv ads, radio commercials, billboards, direct mail… the list goes on.

Why?

Here’s a new definition:

SPAM = marketing without permission

Anytime you don’t have my permission, you are interrupting me… and that is SPAM.

I was working with a direct mail company last week that was bragging about their 2% response rate.

So… 98% ignored you. That’s successful? And that’s not SPAM?

The problem is SPAM is easy and quick. Real marketing isn’t.

It takes time and hard work to establish permission.

Brand trust is the tried and true influence gained by companies. It’s how consumers feel when they purchase that brand: their expectations, satisfaction, likeliness to recommend it, inability to live without it… that kind of stuff.

Example: Starbucks and Bose have tremendous brand trust.

There is huge reliability. You always know what you are going to get and loyal customers express an unwillingness to live without them.

Brand trust is a hard thing to put a finger on, but more than half of all marketing dollars spent by big companies every year goes towards creating or securing brand trust.

On the other hand, brand trust can be real easy to loose.

Think about Microsoft’s release of Vista last year. Billions of dollars of brand trust were lost. I don’t know of ONE person who talks about Vista with fondness and that “I-can’t-live-without-it” attitude. Microsoft may never regain the trust that they knew from the American people circa 1995.

Think about AOL and the clutter that is now associated with their brand. AOL used to be a leader of online technology. A name you could trust. I know of ONE person that uses an AOL email account now. They compromised billions of dollars of consumer trust with the decisions they made.

Think about McDonalds deflecting criticism from Super Size Me or child obesity complaints. Brand trust disappearing right before our very eyes.

At the start of January, Steve Easterbrook, the CEO of McDonalds UK, issued a statement to the Times saying that the video game industry has more to do with childhood obesity than fast food.

Easterbrook told the Times that the food and drinks industry shares responsibility, but made special mention of the popularity of games saying, they have reduced the amount of time young people spend outdoors.

He went on to say, “The issue of obesity is complex.. there’s fewer green spaces and kids are at home playing computer games on the TV when in the past they’d have been burning off energy outside.”

Steve probably thinks he’s pretty smart for knowing what all good PR experts know: redirect criticism.

But Steve forgot the first lesson that all good marketers know: It’s All Marketing.

A press statement like this says more about McDonald’s brand than all their clever commercials for the year.

Just like when Apple fired hundreds of employees at Christmas for stealing iPhone rebates. It makes a statement as to the kind of company they are.

Marketing always starts at the very beginning.. the foundation of the company or organization.

I think McDonalds could add more to their bottom line by publicly addressing this issue head on instead of deflecting the responsibility to video games.

I got in one final run for the week last night. That gives me 9 miles for the week - less than what I wanted, but it was a cold week.

It was actually a good run considering: I had been feeling a bit under the weather over the weekend and I definitely put on a few pounds because of my birthday.

Here’s a layout of my marketing thoughts for the week. Someone asked me, “Why all the marketing talk?”

Two things:

1. That’s my role at my company. I am the Marketing Director.
2. I am preparing a few presentations on marketing for this year, so I am very purposefully trying to write more.

*Bad Marketing: McDonalds

*Brand [dis]trust

*SPAM

*Marketing is…

*Good Marketing: LifeGem

Junky Car Club is a new project by Mike Foster and the team over at Ethur.

I love the idea.

In fact, I was just thinking about how I need to get a junky car.

Not because I’m spiritual like these guys and want to give more money… just because I need another car to get to work.

Know of any?

The better solution for web site marketing is multi-sites.

Since you have MULTIPLE AUDIENCES visiting your site, you should have MULTIPLE LANGUAGES.

And multiple entry points.

What if your web sites looked less like a pyramid and more like this:

Different places to jump on, different languages, different levels of information. They all become tracks that you control and it allows you to lead people to where they NEED to go.

We are experimenting with this right now. We developed a site that we will use on all our external marketing that only gives new prospects what they need to know at that stage in their exploration of the company.

I think you’ll start to see a lot more of this.

I got out tonight for a quick 5K run. It was 25 degrees and snowing pretty good. I guess we’re supposed to get a big snow storm tonight.

I was a little disappointed with my time. I was a minute and 12 seconds off my goal… but it was 25 degrees out.

I was at a marketing conference a few weeks ago and the lady speaking made the statement that your web site is NOT external marketing.

Hmmmm…. instantly she had my attention.

Her reasoning was that web sites are designed for those who already have a general idea about your company or business. If they know how to get to your site, then they know your company and therefore it’s not external marketing.

Okay, sure… I understand. But is that true?

The problem I see is that most web sites are built to be one all-inclusive stop for information. Put everything about your business on that site.

Which causes a conflict because you have MULTIPLE AUDIENCES and only ONE LANGUAGE.

There’s only one track to gain information. You either assume everyone knows something about your company or you assume that everyone knows nothing about your company. It looks like a pyramid; ONE entry point accesses ALL the information.

So I think she’s right in regards to current web culture. Web sties are not external marketing.

But what if they were?

It’s official. Toshiba released a statement yesterday saying they will no longer develop, manufacture or market HD DVD.
That’s it. The war is over. Blu-ray has won.

I’m surprised.

I thought that the history Sony has in failed media would be enough to bring down the Blu-ray Disc Association. Their smarter bet of collaboration paid off this time… at least for now.

I still don’t think Blu-ray is a good long-term standard. It won’t make it. I think it will be here and gone and one day we’ll be talking about it with our kids, “They used to put movies on these big things called LaserDiscs.”

Oh… my father-in-law just bought one…. a HD DVD player.

I told him to try to return it as fast as he could.

So Joanna brought home this personality test from her office and wanted me to take it (The test was a Myers-Briggs adaption). I actually like personality tests, but I like the conversations they invoke even more. It’s fun to talk about why you are how you are.

I scored as a Mastermind.

Yes!

It actually doesn’t mean anything.

But here’s what it says about me at my job:

Masterminds tend to to drive others as hard as they drive themselves and often seem demanding and difficult to satisfy. Their fellow workers often feel as if a Mastermind can see right through them and often believe that they find them wanting. This tendency of people to feel transparent and even incompetent, in their presence often results in working relationships which have some psychological distance. Colleagues may describe Masterminds as unemotional and, at times, cold and dispassionate, when in truth they are merely taking the goals of an institution seriously.

That’s pretty spot on. Especially in my new job.

And here’s what it says about me socially:

Masterminds are the most independent of all and want their mates to be independent as well, able to stand up the strength of their personality. In casual, social situations, they may appear cold. Masterminds may communicate that time is wasted if used for idle chitchat, and thus people receive a sense of hurry from them which is not always intended. Masterminds have a strong need for privacy, and they do not enjoy physical contact except with a chosen few. For all of that, Masterminds are deeply emotional, even romantic types and once they have decided a person is worthy of them, they make passionate and loyal mates.

Jo and I laughed… and made fun of me…. because it’s so true.

So, I was in Johnny Buccelli’s over the weekend and a placed an order at the counter for a grilled steak BBQ sub. The place was busy and the girl taking my order was polite, but when they called my name to come pick up my sandwich, I realized that it didn’t come with fries.

They sell their fries separately.

Which is fine.

They’re a $1.70 extra.

But money’s not the point.

The point is I wanted fries. And nobody told me how to get them.

The most profitable marketing question ever created is:

“Do you want fries with that?”

Billions of dollars in the fast food industry are generated from that one question every year.

And it works. Because you are at their restaurant, ordering their food and you have given them the permission to remind you.

But the girl at Johnny B’s didn’t think it was a big deal.