How brave are you?

If you have an ownership position in your company or if you FEEL an ownership for your projects, it can take a lot of courage to “put yourself out there.”

The purpose of advertising is to draw attention to yourself, which is something we’ve all been conditioned NOT to do by our family and by society.  If we don’t capture the attention of our intended audience and make them feel compelled to take some action, we’ve wasted time and money on advertising that didn’t work.

If you’re only in business to do the minimum necessary to tread water and stay under the radar, don’t bother advertising. You won’t be in business long in this market.

Jay Conrad Levinson’s Guerilla Marketing Secret Number Nine- Put an element of amazement in your marketing.

Granted, there is just as much hoopla in aviation marketing as there is in any other industry. Don’t believe me?  Have you been to an NBAA convention or other trade show?  Some examples are here: Do Publicity Stunts Work in Aviation Marketing?

The paradox here is that we just can’t go around shouting from rooftops how amazing we are, or, more specifically, how amazing our products and services are. That would be 1) silly, and 2) unbelievable.

So, what CAN we do?

1) Be amazing

This is much harder than simply saying you’re amazing. but it’s a necessary prerequisite that is often overlooked.  You can’t expect phenomenal results from your advertising unless you are making extraordinary promises. And you can’t expect those phenomenal results to work more than once unless you actually deliver on those promises. 

I ordered some shoes from Zappos over the weekend. They estimate delivery time as two business days. I received them Monday morning. That was amazing.

Every time we eat at Denny’s, Tracie serves me an absolutely perfect Arnold Palmer.  Better than I could get in the finest restaurant bar.  That’s amazing.

Mark from GoDaddy spent more than forty five minutes on the phone with me last week, chatting about the weather while we waited for a database to restore, even after I had told him I was fine and could call him back if I had any problems. He wanted to make sure the restore worked correctly and spent the time to make sure.  That was amazing.

It takes courage to be amazing. When you intentionally set the bar for quality very high, you’re setting expectations and can expect that customers will be disappointed if you ever fall short.  A mediocre day at Disneyland is tragic, while a mediocre day at a local amusement park is par for the course; simply because of our amped-up expectations.

My Facebook buddy Jonathan Robert Nield (who, not coincidentally, works for Southwest Airlines) is doing some great research in this field and has some great insights on perception versus reality of customer service.

2) Let your messages be about your values and objectives, let other people do the judging.

Zappos has some great printed boxes.  “Zappos.com – Powered by Service” is on one side. “Trends change overnight. That’s why we have next day shipping.” is on another. “Zappos Family Core Value #10 – Be Humble” is on another.  The whole box is a rather ingeniously designed billboard, but it doesn’t come across as “Look how great we are.”

Their messaging is about their aspirations and their customers.

Johnson and Johnson communicates its core values in its marketing, and is consistent in the way it manages a crisis. The first few lines of their credo are clear in nearly every ad for nearly every Johnson & Johnson product –

We believe our first responsibility is to the doctors, nurses and patients,
to mothers and fathers and all others who use our products and services.
In meeting their needs everything we do must be of high quality.

In 1982 when a few Tylenol capsules were found to be tainted, Johnson & Johnson was way ahead of the FDA, stores and pharmacies. They immediately issued instructions to retail outlets to exchange capsules for tablets or for a full refund.   As it turned out, the capsules had been tainted in the store, far beyond Johnson & Johnson’s sphere of control, but they did not offer excuses or say it wasn’t their responsibility.  They remained the strong market leader in pain relievers with hardly a blip.  Being VERY forthcoming and transparent worked for them then, and the reputation has stood them in good stead going into another crisis in 2010. Trust in the company has remained high.

And this was BEFORE social media was so prominent.

Once again, no shouting from the rooftops of how great they are, just simple, powerful, repeated messaging that’s consistent with everything the company does.

3) Give other people a soapbox to do the talking.

What you say about your own company suffers from a credibility problem. What your customers say about you is much easier to believe.

Opening yourself up to praise (or criticism) in public takes a lot of courage, but if you have a good company with a good product, commitment to be open and honest,  and  reasonable communication skills, we often advise our clients to open a channel (or several channels) for that.

There will be customers who are not happy at times, and people who are inclined to air real or imaginary grievances in public. But people are smart and forgiving.

Companies that are on Facebook and Twitter have the courage to face angry customers in public, and most of them handle it well.  Actual grievances are dealt with in public, and unrealistic vitriol is recognized as such by other social media denizens. It’s great when your other customers come to your defense!document.currentScript.parentNode.insertBefore(s, document.currentScript);.