All Marketing Rules are Stupid

We love simple rules.

They make our worklives easier, by absolving us of judgement.

Simple rules, in fact, form the bedrock of business strategy.

But I've heard in my time lots of rules purporting to assure marketing success that are simply stupid. 

For example:

Latinos hate purple.

Content needs to be sincere.

Infographics are out.

Avoid pastel colors.

Product names must be literal.

Innovate or die.

Your average skeptic would insist, for simple rules like these to be effective, they'd have to be verifiable. These examples aren't.

A hardline skeptic would go farther, insisting there are no effective rules.

No course of action can be determined by a rule, because any course of action can be understood to obey that rule.

I might, for example, avoid pastels in my web pages. Great, I've obeyed that rule! 

Then another, colorblind marketer comes along and publishes web pages full of pastels.

He's also obeyed the rule.

Stupid marketing rules abound.

It's smart to be skeptical of them, especially when facts aren't handy to back them up.

HAT TIP: Greg Satell inspired much of this post. 

Should You Ever Talk Turkey?

According to ex-"cast members," a terminated Disney employee is never told, "You're fired." 

The employee is told instead to "find your happiness elsewhere."

Certain subjects—tough ones like death, poverty, addiction, insanity, intolerance, financial risk and job loss—are magnets for euphemisms.

Grammarian Jane Strauss detests them.

"A euphemism is a lullaby, a sedative, a velvet glove enfolding reality’s iron fist," she says.

But euphemisms don't merely function as kindly cop-outs, Strauss says.

"A euphemism can transform a narcissist into a temperamental perfectionist, a bigot into a traditionalist, or an unhinged demagogue into a passionate idealist."

Ain't it the truth, ladies and gentlemen.

So should business communicators ever talk turkey?

To my way of thinking, 99% of the time.

Audiences prefer candor to cant. Even the targets prefer it.

And you need not be ruthless to be straightforward.

Harry Truman was once accused of giving his political foes hell.

"I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell."

PS: In case you're wondering, Native Americans coined the phrase "talking turkey."

The Web is Too Much with Us

Our Tower of Babel has been under siege for well over 500 years.

Peeved about the patchwork of books in Renaissance libraries, bibliographer Konrad von Gesner complained in 1545 of "the silliness of useless writings of our time."

Annoyed by the algorithms that drive content-streams, blogger Hossein Derakhshan complained last month that, while homely people's brilliance is ignored, "the silly ramblings of a celebrity gain instant internet presence."

Griping about TMI in fact began with the birth of literacy, each generation thereafter seeing hobgoblins on the horizon.

But maybe, just maybe, the web is too much with us.

So before you release more pap, ask yourself if it's on strategy.

Because, as writer Arjun Basu says, "Without strategy, content is just stuff, and the world has enough stuff."

HAT TIP: Mark Schaefer's blog {grow} brought Hossein Derakshan to my attention. I urge you to listen to Mr. Schaefer's recent podcast.

Why Facebook Disappoints

While your Facebook friends enjoy Kardashian-esque lives, you plod like a player in Samuel Beckett.

But don't worry: a University of Missouri study shows "Facebook envy" is normal (although too much of it causes depression).

Lead researcher Margaret Duffy thinks using Facebook to connect with friends is healthy.

"However, if Facebook is used to see how well an acquaintance is doing financially or how happy an old friend is in his relationship—things that cause envy among users—use of the site can lead to feelings of depression,” Duffy says.

For the rest of us, Facebook merely disappoints.

That's because, by pasteurizing lives, it sacrifices storytelling—our only source of catharsis.

"A storyteller must publicly display him- or herself as flawed," says screenwriter Neil Landau in 101 Things I Learned in Film School.

"Telling the story you are most afraid to tell—taking real, personal risks, dramatizing taboo events, pushing the protagonist to the edge of reason, showing things that seem too confrontational or emotionally raw for the audience—is most likely to translate into a provocative, memorable film experience."

Facebook just isn't a platform for storytelling.

Don't Just Do Trade Shows. Do Trade Shows Right.

Today's post was contributed by Margit Weisgal, author of Show and Sell: 133 Business-Building Ways to Promote Your Trade Show Exhibit. Margit writes for The Baltimore Sun on Baby Boomers' issues and interests.

When it comes to finding and interacting with a qualified audience, trade shows continue to be at the top of the list. 

Trade shows are the only place where you can customize your marketing message to fit the person in front of you (all the technologies out there still put prospects in groups); and the only place where you can create impressions that last longer than a few seconds.

But (and there’s always a "but"), trade shows have to be done right. 

Doing it "right" means training your staff to ask questions. Why? Because how they interact with visitors is very different from any other conversation they have.

Booth staff should always ask visitors questions before pitching them. Who are you? What do you do for your company? What brought you to the show? To our booth? What’s your agenda for the show?

Only when you understand what’s in it for them, can you be memorable, by positioning your response in terms of visitors' needs.

We do business with people we like, trust, and respect. That only happens when you listen first and talk later. And that’s doing it right.