Tag: marketing

Exercises to Improve your Marketing Fitness

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Brace yourself for the most inspiring episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite thus far. In fact, our guest Coss Marte, had us choking back tears. His story begins a little over a decade ago, when he kick started his own enterprise as a teenager in front of a New York City bodega. By age 19, Marte’s business was raking in over $2 million dollars a year. He ran into trouble shortly thereafter, and in less than ten years he was scrubbing toilets at a reconstructed hotel to pay his rent.

The reason for Marte’s struggles is simple: his business was the business of selling drugs. He was incarcerated at 23 on charges related to peddling drugs, and spent seven years in prison.

Marte, now 31, is a free man and an up-and-coming marketing phenom. Upon his release from prison, he founded ConBody—a prison style fitness program where students work out with minimal equipment. Thanks to Marte’s marketing guts, ConBody is now one of the fastest growing fitness programs in NYC. To be frank, the young entrepreneur probably knows more about advertising than most CMOs. [Note: Drew was first introduced to Coss Marte at this year’s PSFK conference, a must attend event for any renegade thinker.]

You can listen to Marte share his inspiring story on the Renegade Thinkers Unite podcast episode embedded above.

As you might expect, the seedlings of ConBody—which is short for “convict body”—came while Marte was incarcerated. “I got my first medical examination and was told that I could die in prison because of my health issues,” he says. “As soon as they told me this, I went back to my cell and I started doing lunges, and any type of exercise I probably knew.” Marte lost 70 pounds in six months after customizing his own exercise routine. Not long afterwards, he helped over 20 inmates lose over a thousand pounds combined.

Having inspired others to make positive lifestyle changes, Marte started thinking about his past—and his future. “I started realizing that I was creating a web of destruction,” he says, “and for the first time I started praying and asking God, ‘How can I give back?’ And that’s when ConBody was born.” Marte mapped out a plan for an exercise center while he was in solitary confinement, and then turned those blueprints into action when he was released a year later.

Marte’s bold marketing tactics helped put ConBody on the exercise studio map. He began marketing his business by speaking to women who were doing yoga in public spaces. Simply talking to them about ConBody, Marte managed to steadily build a customer base. “There [have] been times,” he states, “where I stood on the train and said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, pay attention.’… I tell my story and I’ll tell about ConBody.” Marte says he continues to share his story about 20 times a day, never underestimating word-of-mouth.

ConBody has boomed since its inception. Upon speaking at a conference, Marte was approached by a woman who offered him the opportunity to open a ConBody location in one of New York City’s most famous luxury department stores, Saks Fifth Avenue. This change in fortune still gives Marte goose bumps. He says, “Every time I go up to the second floor [of Saks], I start smiling because the first thing [I] see on the floor is a mannequin with a ConBody t-shirt on.”

ConBody’s studio atmosphere is no doubt responsible for part of its success. With the intention of motivating participants, Marte designed the studio like a prison. Brick walls and prison bars line the fitness center. Signs that read “five minute showers” and “do the time” line the interior. At ConBody, you’ll find all the same body weight equipment as you would in a prison. This gritty appearance is one of the business’s most popular features, giving members a hardcore workout experience.

Following Marte’s lead, marketers should strive to provide consumers with a similarly exceptional experience. This is the driving force behind ConBody. “If I keep going and I keep delivering a great product,” Marte says, “no matter what I’m going to wake up, I’m going to be okay, and I’m going to live life.” (These show notes were prepared by Jay Tellini.)

How Mars Makes Content the Cat’s Meow

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The customer should be at the center of every marketing campaign. Before selling, though, advertisers need to make the right impression. Content that connects with target audiences is king nowadays, as message pushing continues to wane in effectiveness. Businesses must adapt to their target’s needs in order to have a fighting chance at conversions. Award-winning content marketer Rob Rakowitz, Global Director of Media at Mars, understands better than most that catering to your audience drives brand engagement. (Show notes by Jay Tellini).

Hear Rakowitz share his marketing advice on this week’s episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite. You can listen to the podcast above. Here are this episode’s highlights:

Understanding how customers behave is an essential step towards marketing success. Mars’s Uncle Ben’s brand team noticed that consumers who start their meals with rice are more likely to select a lean protein or a vegetable to go along with it. Under Rakowitz’s leadership, the brand message was refocused accordingly. Rakowitz says, “Uncle Ben’s is about helping consumers make sure that they’re making great food choices on a daily basis.”

To promote this message, Rakowitz’s team launched health-driven campaigns for the brand. In the UK, for instance, the team created a series of short viral videos with a celebrity chef to show consumers how to prepare healthy foods. Given the correlation between Uncle Ben’s products and consumers’ healthy meal choices, the campaign yielded some savory results for Rakowitz’s team at Mars.

Rakowitz used behavioral data to manage the campaign and repurposed the videos for a variety of mediums. “We then figured out how to take that two-minute video and cut it down to 30’s,” says Rakowitz, “which we could put on TV and various social channels—Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.” This campaign owes much of its success to the marketing team’s willingness to learn about Uncle Ben’s target audience—what they want, how they behave and where they go to get their information.

Once Mars finds their customer insights, Rakowitz and his marketing team work to produce a clear and meaningful message. “Media is starting to hit more and more functions both within marketing and outside of it,” says Rakowitz. “The more you can simplify down what it is that [your business is] trying to do from a vision perspective, the better an idea travels.” Because the Uncle Ben’s team made the brand’s healthy eating message clear and executed it efficiently, Rakowitz had a more successful campaign on his hands.

A clear message also depends on defined goals, which Rakowitz says that Uncle Ben’s, Pedigree, and Snickers have all done well. “These brands truly understand that they need to reach more and more customers,” Rakowitz says. “The way that they’re going to do that is not just by throwing advertisers out there, but it’s by actually really figuring out what is their brand’s purpose.” Mars frames its products as solutions rather than simply as objects to establish credible brand identities in the minds of consumers.

Once those impressions are in place, it’s important that target audiences can maintain a healthy relationship with the brand. It all leads back to 4 C’s of conversion, according to Rakowitz: consumers, customers, communications, and commerce. When companies tie these pieces together, they’ll be well positioned to create and execute valuable messages.

Sometimes this means offering a service before selling. Like the Uncle Ben’s campaign, Mars also found value in educating consumers for the corporation’s Whiskas cat food product line. This team launched Kitten Kollege, a series of tongue-in-cheek videos that informed kitten owners about their pets’ life stages. Even though the campaign didn’t specifically push Whiskas, Kitten Kollege earned tangible results for Mars. Rakowitz says, “A lot of the insights that we shared were actually proprietary to Mars and we were able to connect them back to Whiskas.”

Offering a helpful service to customers was a core tenet of both the Whiskas and Uncle Ben’s campaigns. Rakowitz recommends that any other business do the same for its brands. “Don’t message push,” he says. “Think about creating an experience and a solution.”

Road-Tested Tips for Driving a Marketing Department

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Without communication, businesses crumble. Sending a clear message is the only surefire way to get people to care about your brand. This need for coherence isn’t limited to the marketer-consumer relationship, however—all business branches should work in harmony in order to present a sharp brand image. Ann Davids, Senior Vice President and CMO of Direct General Insurance Company, specializes in coordinating her company’s identity on all fronts.

In this week’s episode of the Renegade Thinkers Unite podcast, Davids explains how a brand identity can become too abstract if it’s not managed well internally. It’s Davids’s duty to weave product language, internal language and consumer language together to create campaigns that customers and Direct employees can embrace.

Listen to the podcast above or continue reading for a summary of the episode.

Marketers should stay in close contact with their fellow departments, believes Davids. When the marketing department at Direct works in unison with the entire office, it can accomplish brand goals from all angles. Davids says, “I’ve often heard it said that marketing should make the rest of the organization uncomfortable. I couldn’t agree more. I’ll really advocate for anything the business needs, even beyond marketing if it helps move the needle.”

This strategy is mutually beneficial, Davids finds. In addition to orienting the marketing team’s attention to the overall business plan, she seeks to involve other business disciplines in Direct’s advertising campaigns. In previous years, Davids has laid out the blueprints of her team’s marketing strategy for all to see—literally—by distributing architectural blueprints in frames around the office. “We basically run our own internal campaign, and it tends to get people excited and raise intellectual curiosity,” Davids says. “We have people hand-raising to opt in to work on these things instead of having to recruit.”

The blueprints clearly illustrated the marketing strategies, but they also generated interest in the projects from the entire company. Let’s face it; if an organization can’t get its own team members excited about a campaign, how can it expect to make a lasting impact on consumers?

Speaking of impacting consumers, Davids notes how Direct aims to be, well, more direct. “We try to just always speak the customer’s language,” she says. “Whatever that happens to be for your particular customer, I think you have to really understand them and how they talk and process, and what they’re looking for.” Offering exactly what the consumer needs is only half the battle, however. Without clear, direct marketing, any campaign can fall flat.

Given the nature of Direct Insurance’s industry, it’s inherently tough to make consumers eager to engage with the brand, which is why Davids’s team goes the extra mile to make their experience enjoyable. Davids says, “A lot of people don’t want to pay for insurance, either, so we make it fun, we make it pleasant and we try to have added little surprises along the way that make it easier to do business with Direct Auto and Life Insurance.” These “little surprises” have resonated well with customers, she says.

Another challenge for Direct has been the transition to new marketing platforms. When the company knew it wanted to establish a strong digital presence, Davids was careful not to jump the gun with new channels. Her team decided that gradual changes would better suit the brand’s customers. “Our customer is still telling us that they enjoy other mediums, as well as digital,” says Davids. “They’re still heavy consumers of television and radio, so we’ve been careful in how we transition to digital.”

This kind of adaptability is an important piece of Direct’s marketing puzzle. Davids talks about the art of identifying the next big thing: “Really, what I consider state of the art is knowing when to jump on a trend versus waiting. Or how you might migrate within your own media mix.” Although her team is always looking for the next big thing, the marketing department acts slowly and steadily when integrating it into a campaign.

If Davids could offer just one piece of advice to her fellow marketing leaders, it would be to maintain a robust network of professionals. “I think you’ve got to find people that you connect with,” she says. “If you make investments in these relationships, they will be valuable. There’s nothing more valuable to me than my network and the mentors I’ve had over the years.” (these show notes were prepared by Jay Tellini.)

Bank on a Unique Brand Image

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One of the most difficult but important things marketers can do is find a way to make their brand stand out from the competition. This is an especially weighty challenge in the financial industry, as Suzanne Copeland, the former CMO of Sterling National Bank, will tell you. Faced with regulatory restrictions and fierce competition, Copeland applied renegade thinking to separate Sterling from the pack. In this episode of the Renegade Thinkers Unite podcast, Copeland explains how the bank’s brand positioning allows it to provide one-of-a-kind customer experiences. (These show notes were prepared by Jay Tellini.)

You can listen to the podcast below or continue reading for this episode’s highlights.

Creating a unique brand experience is crucial not only to marketing, but also to business success as a whole. At Sterling, this was no easy feat. As Copeland points out, “Everybody tells you that their customer relationship is better. It’s kind of hard to really tease that out to some specifics that explain exactly how you’re better.”

Abstract problems like these require creative solutions. For example, Copeland’s content marketing strategy at Sterling went against the grain to reach to its audience, and you may be surprised to learn that digital marketing had little to do with it. The company wanted to bring its message to the consumer’s doorstep—literally. The finished product for Sterling was Connect Magazine, a print publication featuring the success stories of some of its clients. Copeland says, “We have been publishing Connect Magazine for over seven years now, and a key feature is that we do client profiles. We have a cover story with a client talking about their business.”

Connect Magazine continues to spread brand awareness for both client businesses and Sterling National Bank. Copeland continues, “[Featured clients] sprinkle in where Sterling has helped them with their business.” By mentioning how the bank has assisted clients, the publication also gets people talking about Sterling. As Copeland notes, “There is some relationship building with regard to the prospects and, quite frankly, most of Connect is mailed to prospects and that helps build our brand. But at the same time, it is going to our clients…It is also creating brand ambassadors that will praise our services.”

Like Copeland, many marketers face the challenge of presenting a uniform brand image. The team at Sterling is constantly maneuvering to keep all employees on the same page. “We have a lot of different sales people with a very specific approach,” Copeland says. “It’s really hard to be efficient with that. So, for us, the challenge is how do you have a really lean organization? How do you create some level of consistency and some configurability so that you can address vertical markets?”

Copeland urges marketers everywhere to hone in on their core business to find a unifying message. She says, “The other thing now I think that we can do ourselves is just be maniacal about focusing on our business strategy, really understanding what is it this company is doing.”

Perhaps the biggest blunder a marketing team could make is to seclude itself from the company’s other operations. “The biggest ‘don’t’ for me is getting cornered in the marketing world,” says Copeland. “You’ve got to be able to have relationships beyond that in the organization, and really understand what other parts of the organization are doing, and not just say this is the marketing domain and that’s the only place that I stay.”

The Recipe for Marketing Success + Chuck Roast

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Customer experience is at the core of marketing success. Nimble founder and CEO Jon Ferrara explains where and how brands should be targeting their messages in Part II of his interview on the Renegade Thinkers Unite podcast. (If you missed Part I of the interview, click here to listen.) Ferrara grew Nimble out of the idea that brands do best when customers recommend them to their networks. Nine years later, Ferrara’s business is stronger than ever and venturing into new marketing frontiers.

Listen to the interview above, or continue reading for the episode’s highlights:

During his extensive tenure in marketing, Ferrara learned that business doesn’t have to be impersonal. In fact, his experience at GoldMine CRM—and eventually Nimble—demonstrates that the best marketing strategies are personal in nature. Ferrara says, “I think the mistake that many businesspeople make is that they make business about business…[but business] is about connecting with people. That’s why they’ll remember you.”

Jon walks the walk on that philosophy, sharing both his personal and private social accounts with the people in his network to this day.

Ferrara didn’t originally foresee GoldMine, his first business venture, taking a turn towards customer-centricity. “GoldMine actually started out as an accounting software company,” he says. “I needed something to manage the relationships, so I built and designed GoldMine to do that. It turned out that GoldMine really was our future and we had to pivot.” Ferrara’s strategy at GoldMine was to “build relationships with editors and writers so [consumers would] see us being written about in publications; and then we started slipping in radio ads and airplane ads.”

Nimble, which launched in 2008, capitalizes on that same influencer-driven approach. “We’re here to help those influencers build their brands in social sales and marketing by helping them inspire and educate our customers,” he states. “So it’s a win-win situation.” The company anticipates user counts of multiple millions in the near future.

One of Ferrara’s top priorities is helping Nimble’s marketing team strike the right balance between telling a unified brand message and genuinely opening up to potential partners. He says, “The relationships happen at that one-to-one level across your team members, but you still need to have a unified message, be consistent about that messaging, drive the high level stuff, and then integrate.”

Knowing that he’s serving his customers is Ferrara’s biggest reward, and he takes every compliment to heart. “When somebody stops [me] on the street and says, ‘you know, Jon, you changed my life with GoldMine,’ or ‘you’re changing my life with Nimble,’ that’s the best,” he claims. “That’s why we do what we do.”

Marketing Your Business without Paid Media

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Building strong relationships with influencers in your niche is a tenet of Marketing 101. The folks you connect with can not only provide terrific insights about your target market, but they can also help get your brand in front of potential customers. Nobody understands this strategy better than Jon Ferrara, founder and CEO of Nimble. A pioneer of CRM (customer relationship management), Jon firmly believes in the power of connecting with influencers on a personal level. His company strives to help marketers reach consumers through social influencers on a variety of online platforms. As the world of social media continues to expand, Jon offers advice on how companies can break through to their target audiences by networking with trusted advisors.

Jon explains that in order to reach your audience, you must look beyond it. People would rather buy a product or service that’s recommended to them by somebody they trust, and that’s where social influencers come in.

Nimble, a social selling software, lets its influencers talk about the brand to its target audience, rather than toot its own horn. “I think it’s more powerful when other people talk about you than when you talk about you,” Jon proclaims.

Jon began marketing Nimble not by talking about how great his brand is, but by adding value. Whenever he found a great article from a relevant influencer, he would share it on social media. Jon states, “Once the influencer who wrote that content reached out and thanked me, I then reeled them in and started a conversation.” Many of those conversations turned into relationships, which in turn resulted in more clients for his brand.

Jon’s example shows that by giving a little, you can get big returns providing more proof that we are in what I call “The Give to Get Economy.” Jon even goes so far as to say, “I think service is the new selling… Even if it means recommending somebody else’s product, that’s social selling.” Jon bases his business model on this message, and believes that “giving to get” is the future of marketing.

Jon’s doctrine has significantly expanded Nimble’s footprint. “As you see it, share it,” he says. “So that’s the way I built the Nimble brand…by identifying the influencers, sharing their content, engaging with the people that responded and engaged with those influencers as they’re responding, and turning them into evangelists.”

When getting in touch with influencers, Jon makes a point to genuinely connect with them rather than advertise to them outright. He’s been teaching salespeople to get to know the people they do business with from day one. Whenever we meet a new potential connection, Jon urges us to look around that person’s office and take note of the books or knickknacks. Jon says, “All those things are opportunities for you to discover things that you might have in common with that person to develop the intimacy and trust that you need in order to get that person to open up to you about their business issues, which as professionals you could then solve.”