Fred Abaroa

A new show called undercover boss is everything that a marketer dreams about. Number 1 is that it is a reality show. This makes it entertaining and kinda hides the fact they are selling you on the corporation and its products. Second your taking "the Man", CEO of the company, and putting him into the trenches with us the common man. The CEO become humanized as he see what the employees have to deal with. Third the CEO has an opportunity to tell the viewer what things are supposed to be like. Think about it, the next time you see something wrong at the 7-11, for example, you wont blaim all 7-11 because you know it is not supposed to be that way. Forth you get a look into the company, almost a virtual tour. I found this interesting because I did not realize Hooters and 7-11 had a factory making products. Fifth the CEO goes back to corporate and makes changed to make his company better. This is usually done in a big corporate announcement. Another bonus is to see the CEO reward an employee with some great vacation or something.

After all this the view has a desire to use that company because they now feel a part of it and want to help the employees as well. Would you love to be able to do this for your clients. I know I would. There are many local TV stations looking to produce local shows. Why not one of these?

Fred Abaroa
The Marketing Imagineer
Fred [@] TMIFred.com

Twitter:
@FredXpress
@TMIFred

Blogs:
www.TheMarketingImagineer.com
Podcasts:
WordOnTheTweet.net
MakingMountainsOutOfMoleHills.com

Native African people who have never even listened to the radio before can nonetheless pick up on happy, sad, and fearful emotions in Western music, according to a new report published online on March 19th in Current Biology. The result shows that the expression of those three basic emotions in music can be universally recognized, the researchers said.

"These findings could explain why Western music has been so successful in global music distribution, even in music cultures that do not as strongly emphasize the role of emotional expression in their music," said Thomas Fritz of the Max-Planck-Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences.

More importantly to you it explains why the pitch or tone of your voice in pitching or presenting ideas is so important. 

Pitch, speed, and word choice are all very important elements of strong delivery. The sounds of your words matter. Your Voice can convey to persuasion and confidence. Have you ever noticed that most most movie trailers and TV commercials often use a voice-over artist (both men and woman) with deep voices. Remember Don LaFontaine? He’s the guy that made the phrase, "in a world," a movie trailer cliche. It turns out that, according to research, the deeper the pitch of the voice, the more persuasive, more confident, more capable, (and more attractive). That’s the reason that guy made millions with his voice! You'll want to use as low a pitch as naturally possible. Notice I said natural, this is key. When there is a change in pitch people notice. Use this to emphasize key words, phrases and sentences in your pitch.

Next is your rate of speech. Talking too fast can show you are nervous, too slow and bore the audience. 120-145 words a minute is ideal. Again vary the rate to draw attention. While your at it repetition also draws attention to key elements of your presentation. I'll often point out that I am repeating something key. Again I often point out that I am repeating something key. But with a different pitch and rate. Additionally use alliteration, assonance and consonance for the words that are repeated. I'll let you look those up.

A beautifully composed pitch is like a song to the heart! Let me guide you before your next presentation or pitch,

Fred Abaroa
The Marketing Imagineer
Fred [@] TMIFred.com

Twitter:
@FredXpress
@TMIFred

Blogs:
www.TheMarketingImagineer.com
Podcasts:
WordOnTheTweet.net
MakingMountainsOutOfMoleHills.com

In Gladwell's The Tipping Point he states, "The Band Aid solution is actually the best kind of solution because it involves solving a problem with the minimum amount of effort and time and cost." The band aid referred to here is Word of Mouth. Of course it has to be the right mouths. Gladwell refers to these people as Connector, Mavens and Salesmen. The Connectors are people who "link us up to the world". They have social networks in the hundreds. They seem to know everyone and everyone knows them. The Mavens are "information specialist". They accumulate knowledge especially in the marketplace and share it. Finally the Salesmen are "persuaders", charismatic people with negotiation skills. Your assignment is to make a list of Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen. Find out their speciality and match it with the products your marketing. You should always have a relationship with these band aids. Ask their advice and keep them up to date. Don't force it, this will not work at all. The word of mouth campaigns are most effective when they are natural. Gladwell's book talks in a lot more detail about context and other points. Take a read and put it to good use. Don't just read but do.

Fred Abaroa
The Marketing Imagineer
Fred [@] TMIFred.com

Twitter:
@FredXpress
@TMIFred

Blogs:
www.TheMarketingImagineer.com
Podcasts:
WordOnTheTweet.net
MakingMountainsOutOfMoleHills.com

Ok so I wasn't really elected but I still feel special. What am I talking about? A fairly new set of Social Media tool which makes going places a bragging right. The two apps I know of are Foursquare and Gowalla. In a nutshell whenever you go to the gym, restaurant, sporting event, mall, etc.. you "Check-In" and you are awarded a prize. The software also tells you who else in your network of friends is there and who has been there the most. The person who has been there the most is the Mayor. I know it may not sound that fun at first but after a while it becomes a competition and encourages you to visit places you may not have previously. Here is where the marketing opportunitycomes in. A savvy business owner can monitor this competition and post the current top ten. I would put it on my Twitter and facebook pages. I'd taunt the number 2 and 3 to get them to beat number 1. As the competition heats up others who have these apps get informed and start to wonder about this place that has so many people trying to become number one. As you can now see the top three have become accidental salesman for your establishment. What a great way to create buzz and it is easy.

PS I just listened to a Marketing Over Coffee episode. They had even more ideas.

So what are you waiting for? Make a Poster and let the competition begin! (Need help getting started? You know how to find me)

Fred Abaroa
The Marketing Imagineer

fred [@]TMIFred.com

Twitter:
@FredXpress
@TMIFred

Blogs:
www.TheMarketingImagineer.com
Podcasts:
WordOnTheTweet.net
MakingMountainsOutOfMoleHills.com

I hear this statement a lot, so what is my answer??? It could! Let's take a look at a couple "It"s. For a lot of businesses, especially B2B, Facebook is the wrong choice. (Isn't it) You have to build yet another website, sort of. You have to provide content. Finally you have to build up your fans. The later being the hardest thing to do. I looked at one of the largest fan pages for a business, Best Buy, and it is over a million. Of course one TV commercial has a lot more than that. Marketers will go as far as telling you, "The Facebook fans chose to be a fan and are thus loyal." That may be true but it still takes more than that million for a big company like Best Buy. Still we are not talking B2B.

Another "Wrong Choice" for B2B is Twitter. All the same things I talked about with Facebook apply here, build the landing page, which is probably only seen once. Provide content, only 140 char at a time. And getting people to follow and pay attention to what you tweet.

By now those of you who know me are wondering if this is really Fred writing this. Those of you who really know me and have heard me speak know that I have found great success with social media for myself and clients. Yes those of you who paid attention to my talk know that it was twitter itself that worked for me but the publicity I could generate by showing it works.

Yes it is the free publicity. Dell made headlines telling the world sales have been up since using twitter. But was it really twitter or the fact they bought alienware and other factors. Your success in sales is due to people knowing you exist. The right people. A good piece of publicity goes a long way. Especially with the internet where a story can resurface over and over again. Every year around July 4th Costa Vida is mentioned in the news. Why you ask? Well one of the competitors of Nathan's Famous Hot Dog eating contest is Tim "Eater X" Janis the Costa Vida World Burrito Eating Champion. I have my google alerts turned on to my clients and the competitors and it always amazes me how many times I see the same story surface. I am also seeing my tweets, linkedin updates, and Facebook status coming back at me through other peoples blogs. You see many blogs now have running Facebook and Twitter updates on that site. Search Engine bought hit it the right time and your mentioned all over again.

So here is my advice. Measure your sales now. Start up a twitter and Facebook presence. Market the heck out of your product. Then measure your sales again. Take the best looking number and tell the world since using social media sales have been up. Since reporters are still looking for this kind of story, they'll jump on it. Especially if you say you never thought B2B could benefit from social media!

Do I even need a call to action here? If this makes sense and you need a marketing, talk to me.

Fred Abaroa
The Marketing Imagineer

fred [@]TMIFred.com

Twitter:
@FredXpress
@TMIFred

Blogs:
www.TheMarketingImagineer.com
Podcasts:
WordOnTheTweet.net
MakingMountainsOutOfMoleHills.com