Personality Marketing Get more business, more easily, with more fun, by being 100% YOU!

photo credit: fdecomite

Short post today to link over to a great article on The Personality Project, entitled How LEGO used comics to build a community.

My reasons for linking over are the first and last paragraphs in the article, which I absolutely agree with:

“Perhaps the real challenge for organizations looking to find their unique personality is figuring out how to convince clients that newly discovered personality isn’t yet another marketing trick or sales tactic.”

“…personality is more than just telling customers what you or your company are about; personality is showing that you’ve learned something and doing something about it.”

Couldn’t agree more Jake!

Posted under Corporations with personality, Products With Personality

Similar to the article I wrote about the Virgin Atlantic safety video, Delta Airline has discovered how putting some personality into what is normally a very mundane and ignored piece of communication can really make a difference.

With (at the time of writing) just shy of half a million (499,373) views on YouTube, Katherine Lee (who’s been dubbed ‘Deltalina’ for her resemblance to Angelina Jolie) has brought Delta Airline some huge benefits:

1. People now actually watch the safety video (the original and admirable intent)
2. Delta is getting massive exposure on blogs, news channels and so on
3. I suspect there may even be some people choose to fly Delta purely to watch the safety video and find out what the fuss is.  At the very least, you can be damn sure they’ll be telling other people about it! (Watch for the now infamous ‘finger wag’ about half-way through )

Here’s my challenge for you.

Think about the ordinary, every day, regular communication touch points you have with your customers.  Is there any way you could put more of your personality into those communications?  It could be order confirmation emails, it could be invoices - any time you communicate with your customers and clients, you have an opportunity to inject personality.

Pick one thing and change it - today.

Posted under Corporations with personality

Sound marketing advice can be found in the strangest, and oldest of places - in this case, one of Aesop’s Fables.  In case you didn’t know Aesop was an Ancient Greek slave and story-teller - so we’re talking about marketing advice from about 600 BC!

I’m always trying to encourage you to put some personality into your marketing, and this story perfectly illustrates why:

“An old man and a young boy were traveling through their village with their donkey. The boy rode on the donkey and the old man walked.

As they went along they passed some people who remarked it was a shame the old man was walking and the boy was riding.

The man and boy thought maybe the critics were right, so they changed positions.

Later, they passed some people that remarked, “What a shame, he makes that little boy walk.” They then decided they both would walk.

Soon they passed some more people who thought they were stupid to walk when they had a decent donkey to ride. So, they both rode the donkey.

Now they passed some people that shamed them by saying, “How awful to put such a load on a poor donkey.”

The boy and man said they were probably right, so they decided to carry the donkey.

As they crossed the bridge, they lost their grip on the animal and he fell into the river and drowned.

The moral of the story?

If you try to please everyone, you may as well just kiss your ass goodbye.”

OK - honesty moment.  That’s not the original wording, but it made me smile more!

And the point made by the original wording of the moral is as true now as it’s always been: “PLEASE ALL, AND YOU WILL PLEASE NONE.”

Are you trying to please everyone?  Or are you being uniquely you - and attracting the kinds of customers and clients that love you for that?

Posted under Marketing