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This morning likely Republican Nominee John McCain named Alaskan Govenor Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential running mate. Now we all know that McCain did not do this for a political reason, she pales in comparison to any of his other choices. But this is not a political blog, this is about marketing, and McCain’s choice could prove to be a smart marketing move.

Palin has a unique story, she’s a normal person who got into politics to make a difference, she has 5 kids, one who is serving in the armed forces. Let’s not forget she’s a woman, and McCain is trying to win points based on recent trends of a certain female politician. There is plenty to talk about here. But even more timely was this shocking news. Right after the end of the Democratic National Convention.

So what’s the marketing lesson here.

• Add something unique and worth talking about to your brand.
• Time the release to draw as much attention away from your competition as possible. (Especially at a time when you competition has something worth talking about.)
• Appeal to current trends and the desires of undecided customers in your niche.

The problem though, is that this can backfire. A flash in the pan is impressive, but you need to have the firepower to follow up. And if you read the commentary, right now that is still really undediced. So only time will tell if that’s the case for this brand. And the biggest questions is whether a well placed marketing move could end up spelling the end of a campaign, or the beginning of a presidency.

When it comes to marketing, intelligence of your market is vital. Not knowing who your customers are is kind of like going into battle and not knowing who the enemy is. You end up shooting every direction, wasting a lot of time and bullets.

If you really want to be prepared to dominate your market you must come up with a system to market to your customers, and organize them appropriately. Behold color coding…

Customers will enter your organization as yellow, and depending on how you interact with them will move towards either green or red.

So here’s how it works:

Read more…

Seth Godin posted a topic on his blog called “The Dead Zone of Slick” . I’ll give you a quick summary, but if you haven’t read it, you should head over and read it.

Basically Seth was saying that when people or companies are used to operating in the hump of real and they try to migrate to slick, they get stuck in the dead zone in between.

This is very true of small businesses who don’t always have the skills to make the migration to slick. They may be the most honest, real business, but when its time to put a large presentation together to woo a large potential investor, they often fall short. The opposite can be true, a company could put together the slickest marketing materials, the best website, the best looking office, but when its time to become real and deliver the goods, they fall short. This exact problem caught a lot of business in the original dot com bust.

There is a lesson to be learned here. Master the real first, without it you will fall of the slick hill very quickly.  But what I think Seth forgets to mention is that the real skill is the person or company who can migrate quickly from one hump to the next. This company would be like a talented skateboarder, gliding down one hump, and up quickly the next. The person or company who can not only do this, but also understand when they need to do this will have a distinct advantage in the marketplace.

A bad skateboarder would just sail down one hill and get stuck… and that’s exactly what Seth points most people do.

So the lesson is if you want to grow your business online and off. You need to know when its time to be a slick marketer and when its time to be real marketer, and you need to make sure you are good at both.

I spend a lot of time traveling for various projects, and I often think that there has to be a better way to capitalize on the captive nature of an airplane. As a traveler, there isn’t anywhere to go once you board a plane (barring the occasional criminal turned skydiver). Isn’t that a perfect place for marketers to reach customers? You would think so, but usually the only two things on board are skymall magazine and the standard issue airplane magazine.

Goofing around with this concept, I stumbled across this unique in-air ad agency InterAir Media. They list a lot of ideas on their site, like flyers in seat back pockets, in-air video, etc. I’ve thought there is also the possibility for a modified seat back lightbox to display ads.

There are plenty of options, its just a matter of giving a couple a shot and seeing what happens. But if I was in the business of reaching business travelers, I would surely be trying to leverage some deals with the airlines.

So tonight while watching the Olympics, I was playing around on iTunes downloading a couple movies for some upcoming trips. I decided to download one of my favorite movies of all time, which also happens to be the greatest marketing movie ever created. Some of you may have heard of it. It’s a small indie flick.

Now before everyone thinks I’ve gone nuts, let me explain. In this movie there are three key elements that, if applied, will dramatically improve any business or marketing program.

Read more…

I’ll make this simple. Your customers are stupid. They don’t know about your business, they don’t know your industry jargon, in fact they don’t even care. All they care about is themselves. They are selfish, you can’t change that, so get over it. But you can use it to your advantage.

Remember customers are stupid. So don’t try to hard to impress them. Keep it simple and get right to the point. To often marketers think they are the next Michelangelo and start creating breathtakingly beautiful ads. All these ads really do is impress other marketers, and stroke egos. They don’t convert, they don’t make money. Now there will always be exceptions. But as a whole, your customers are bombarded daily with marketing message. Tell them quickly what you have to offer and move them along. You need to get them into your conversion funnel, or sales process, not sitting around admiring the beauty of your ad.

Now a good looking ad does have benefits, but there is a balance. Make sure your ad looks good enough so that it isn’t distracting in its ugliness, but not to beautiful that it takes away from your message.

Remember customers are stupid, they need things presented very simply to them, and they will respond. Get too creative and they will be confused and just move on.

So here I am sitting at the Affiliate Summit on Tuesday, the last day of the summit. And let me tell you, its been very productive.

Marketing is all about generating revenue and affiliate marketing isn’t any different. For those of you who don’t understand affiliate marketing, its actually quite simple. Its basically where a merchant or business has a independent salesforce. How do they accomplish that? They pay a commission on a sale, or a fee on an action.

Often referred to as CPA Marketing, or Cost Per Acquisition or Cost Per Action. Each merchant pays per certain actions. And the Marketer often called a Publisher or Affiliate is paid every time someone completes one of those actions.

Now some of you reading this already know this, but for those of you who have never heard of this before. Make sure you think more about how this can affect your business.

If you are a publisher, you can make money off the traffic on your website.
If you are a merchant, you can get a large salesforce to drive sales to your products or services.

I will post a basic tutorial on setting up a program for both affiliates and merchants when I return from Boston. Until then…

I am packing my bags today as I get ready to leave for Boston and the Affiliate Summit East. This will be a unique experience as Affiliate Marketing is not a traditional source of revenue for the Newspaper Industy.

I am writing a report of the industry and how it can be applied to the newspaper industry. I will post it once I return and complete it.