Guest Blogging at NonProfit Conversation

Today's blog is actually on someone else's blog. I did a guest blog for the blog Nonprofit Conversation. So just head over to http://nonprofitconversation.blogspot.com/ and learn how the Anita Borg Institute is using Social Media.

Marketing Disasters and Lessons Learned Pt 1: Never tell a reporter anything you don't want to see in print

I saw a request today for PR disasters in recent history and that got me thinking about past marketing disasters. We all have them. This first disaster took place while I was riding a shuttle bus in Chicago in 2000. I was attending the old PCS tradeshow and had left my co-worker to go to the hotel to work. My phone rang and through the static I could hear my boss screaming at me in a mixture of chinese and english. I got off the bus at some other hotel to try and get a better signal and then I heard it. Our Chief Scientist had gone to a standards meeting in China and encountered a reporter. The reporter said, I heard your new company is doing well. The Chief Scientist proceeded to tell the reporter in detail the names of all the potential customers we were engaging with and that we had a deal with a major wireless carrier in the US. And the reporter published it. And the screaming began.

My boss called me not to tell me to be prepared in case we were asked about it, but to tell me to call the newspaper and have them print a retraction. I remember the conversation went like this:

Me: So did he actually tell the reporter we have that company as a signed customer?
Boss: Yes he did. But he didn't know the reporter would write about it.
Me: Did the reporter not identify himself? Did he know he was a reporter?
Boss: Yes he did know that. But he didn't know the reporter would write about it.
Me: Was the reporter taking notes while they talked?
Boss: (Background conversation) Yes, he did.
Me: Then there is nothing we can do. The reporter did his job.

And the screaming started again. There was truly nothing that could be done, no trickery was involved, it was just an executive enjoying his moment in the spotlight.

The article published, the customer screamed and walked away from us and life continued. The damage with the customer was done - perhaps if we'd had a deeper relationship or commitment we would have been able to salvage the relationship. I don't doubt that part of it was a language issue but to this day when I work with Executives my first piece of advice is never tell a reporter anything you don't want to see in print.

Pitching in 140 Characters

I attended a webinar yesterday morning, albeit briefly because yesterday was meeting marathon day at work. The webinar was about social media and public relations. And for the most part it was directed at people who work for companies but manage the relationship with their Public Relations firm. So parts of the webinar were about how you should be measuring the ROI of PR - a topic I'll discuss some other time - and parts were on how you should be making sure that your PR firm is delivering value to you by being Social Media savvy.

Due to our budget restrictions this year our PR firm is completely focused on doing the promotion of our two major events and the release of our three research reports. So all the pitching that takes place in between and media mangagement is mine to do. And I've stepped up those efforts - contacting key media that we've worked with in the past, tracking blog uptakes and contacting bloggers who write about subjects near and dear to our hearts, keeping track of varioius reporters blogs.

But during the Webinar I heard something that gave me real pause. Some reporters no longer read press releases or their email. They want to be pitched in Twitter. If you can't do your pitch in 140 characters they won't pay attention to you.

My first thought was give me a list. Who are these people and what is their twitter address? And then I realized - I now need to not only find out who these people are, I have to follow them on twitter and then somehow convince them to follow me. AND, I have to take my pitches - which I tend to be able to do in a 5 or 6 line email paragraph down to 140 characters. Now this is a challenge. How do you convey not only who you are but what cool thing you want them to write about in 140 characters?

So I spent some time last night trying to figure out how I would introduce the Anita Borg Institute in 140 characters and then how I would explain our compelling content. One of our upcoming research studies is going to be on Millenials in the Technical Workforce. 33 characters. And I haven't even told you what about Millenials. 10 characters. Is there a new shorter way to say Millenials? Youths? 6 characters but not really appropriate. 20 somethings.12 characters - that's worse. Newcomers. 9 characters - saves 1 character. But now they sound like alien beings from another planet. Newcomers in the Technical Workforce. A new movie from the guy who brought you Alien.

So as Social Media pulls us together and makes connecting easier it also creates new challenges.

NonProfit Marketing: Exchanging Cash for Prizes

As every NPR listener knows, several times a year the station runs a fundraiser. Beloved programs are cut short, you miss chunks of the morning news, Terry Gross doesn't get to say Fresh Air as often as you'd like. I actually enjoy the pledge drive. What creative combination of goodies will KQED offer its listening audience to tempt them to pay in their $12 per month to support the station. And in just two days I've heard several winners that truly have tempted me. Before I go any further know that I do support KQED annually and am the proud owner of a DVD on biking around the Bay Area, would be helpful if I owned a bike, a KQED messenger bag (ordered because I was desperate to find something that my overlarge work laptop would fit into comfortably), a crank emergency radio/flashlight - a lifesaver during last year's 12 hour power outage and best of all a complete DVD set which has every issue of the New Yorker from its founding to 2006. So yes, I'm a marketer who loves NPR and wants to do good - for a price.

So what temptations have been offered this week? On the way home today if I donated I would get coupons for two pies from Whole Foods. Now I'm not sure why these pies are so special except them come from Vermont and have sort of blueberry madness going on in one and three kinds of apples in the other. Not a temptation. There is the mind exercise dvds - 40- 1 hour classes to help train my brain. Somewhat tempting but $30 per month is the required fee and I'm not sure the DVDs wouldn't just sit on my desk waiting for a week when I have all that spare time.

Then there is the one that I just loved. It's a combo gift - all you get delivered to your home is a small tote bag that zips up into a wallet sized item you can carry in your purse. And if you get that bag then 100 lbs of food will be donated in Rwanda by Whole Foods. And how cool is that? I can give cash to help one charity and another charity will also benefit. And to top it all off, if I told them I don't need the tote bag - the money that would have been spent sending me the tote bag would go to the San Francisco Food Bank and it would be enough to buy 180 meals. That's just amazing. I can do a trifecta - do one donation and benefit three charities simultaneously.

So did I give? Not yet. I'm still waiting. KQED tends to escalate the prizes as the drive progresses. What may be on offer on Friday or even next Monday? I can tell you I almost always give on the last day. The endless repetition wears me down and I crack just before the final bell rings.

What would be your idea of the perfect gift item? What would get you to donate?

Movie Marketing: All The Award Shows

Unless you are completely oblivious to the media you know that we are in that crazy time of the year, award show season. Now is the time as we huddle for warmth in our homes (because we've turned down the heat to conserve energy and our dollars) that we settle in and watch all the beautiful people walk the red carpet and receive their awards.

Of course, it's all about marketing. The stars turn out so they can promote their movie which is either in the theatres now or about to come out on DVD. It's all about making money.

Last night's SAG awards was entertaining since it acknowledged not the films themselves (though people did talk about them) but their casts. Mike and I missed the first hour but thoroughly enjoyed watching the second hour. As huge fans of Mad Men we were thrilled to see it win best cast for a TV series - and we totally agree. Of course after the speech we went into a discussion of exactly how long it was until the next season of Mad Men started and would it be adversely impacted if the show creator left and exactly how old are Elizabeth Moss and Fred Armisen and how could they possibly be engaged? In fact I think we missed the next award because I had to go check IMDB for their birthdates.

So do Award Shows work? Do they get us to go to a movie or watch a TV show, or order a DVD? I'll confess - the results are mixed. Mike still can't figure out how Slumdog Millionaire is doing so well (he's seen it and didn't love it) and I'm thinking since it keeps winning perhaps I do need to go see it so I can be prepared for Oscar night. However, I'm still outraged that Gran Torino and Clint Eastwood have been overlooked - so I'm discounting somewhat the award shows intelligence. Sean Penn winning for Milk was understandable since I had seen it - but since Mike remembers it all vividly, since he lived in the Bay Area at the time, he's not as inclined to see it. I will confess - I'm going to have to add that John Adams Series to my Netflix list - with as many wins as it's had it is probably worth my time.

My first mentor

One of the things I've struggled with is how to generate a lot of content in a single month. We have a Fast Company Blog that needs to be fed weekly, an ABI Blog that should be fed weekly, a newsletter with 10 articles monthly, plus articles for columns in a variety of publications. So right now I'm implementing themes and this month's theme is Mentoring. Mentors are people who provide you feedback and guidance as you move through your career. Mentors can be long and short term, inside your company and outside, high level or peers. So I've been reflecting on who my mentors have been throughout my career in Marketing and my fondest memory is of my first real mentor.

Her name was Mary Randall. Mary was on vacation when I took my first job out of grad school with the telephone company. She was gone for a whole month which was unheard of to me - but as a 20+ year employee she had the vacation time to do it. When she came back she found me ensconced at her desk since my predecessor steadfastly refused to give up the cube I was supposed to sit in. And while my first boss was a woman known for her yelling and cutting remarks (at least amongst the people unfortunate enough to sit anywhere near her office) Mary was a bastion of calm competence and got me a cube.

So what did Mary, who's job was to manage the white pages and yellow page listings in the phone book teach me about Marketing?

1. To be responsible and make sure the job gets done correctly. Never assume anyone else is going to double and triple check - because often they don't - so it is up to me to make sure that item a and item b are where they are supposed to be. And that is doubly true of vendors - never assume they know what's going on. This is a lesson I'm reminded of whenever I ship something - it is amazing how off track shipments can go.

2. To treat everyone as an equal. I watched a relatively new MBA in marketing talk down to Mary in a meeting one day- and did he ever find out that it was a mistake. She was universally liked and respected and he needed her to get his job done - and since she didn't report to him she made things very difficult simply by being unavailable for his meetings. I finally told him he needed her on his side - in fact you need everyone you can get on your side to make marketing happen. It took a lot of work for him to rebuild that relationship.

3. Work/Life Balance. Mary was the queen of work/life balance. She left each day at 5 p.m. and took a bus home. In the summers she'd drive to Canandaigua Lake, one of the Finger Lakes in Upstate New York, to the campsite where she and her husband parked their RV and kept their boat. Several times I was lucky enough to go along for an evening of cruising the lake in the boat and having a cookout over an open fire. It seemed surreal that she literally got to go on vacation every night. Mary taught me that you need to have that work/life balance so to this day I try to make time for my life no matter how busy I get - even if it's just reading a novel over breakfast or knitting for half an hour before bed.

4. Always do the math. When it came time for Mary to consider retirement she walked me through how she did the math. What did coming to work cost her every day? Once she added up gas, bus fare, work clothes, lunches, coffees, etc she and her husband came to the conclusion that retirement was actually more profitable than working. Years before we'd done a massive financial analysis together and she taught me how to look at the numbers many different ways and with a cynical eye. To this day I look at forecasting differently thanks to Mary.

5. Look for the hidden agenda. It that same financial analysis Mary and I rapidly came to the conclusion that changing yellow page companies would be more costly to our firm than any "new profits" other companies talked to us about could bring. We'd lose money no matter what. We went into the first meeting with our VP loaded with data to explain this. And at the end of our very very thorough presentation he looked us right in the eye and said "wrong answer". And off we skulked. So we started doing some asking around and found out that there were things our CEO wanted that our current company just couldn't do. And even if it cost the company a couple of million we were going to change. And change we did. It was heartwrenching for us and it cost dozens of people their jobs but from that we learned to always try and find a hidden agenda in any executive level project. And to make it happen.

So Mary was my first Mentor and a great one.

Marketing of Hope

Today is the inauguration of the 44th President and I will admit - I am a fan. Not only of the man but also of his organization. Barack Obama exemplifies every PR person's dream - an executive who stays on message. And the culmination of this was his inaugural address - he was clear, well spoken (unlike 43 who could seldom do a sentence without hesitation - these translated into pauses for emphasis (and applause) with Obama, and highly impactful. Obama didn't sugar coat anything - he told us we're in trouble, he identified the trouble spots and he said we're going to fix them and go back to being the greatest country in the world. In other worlds he gave us hope. And we love him for it.

While the last administration never could seem to tell us the truth about anything, Obama told it to us straight. And while the last administration violated the constitution you got the sense that Barack would lay down his life to defend it.

So did he sell me, yes absolutely. His 2 year campaign has come to both an end and a new beginning. And now we can only hope that he delivers what he sold us and not vaporware.