I love the word strategery. If you missed it, this came into the consciousness of America through a Saturday Night Live skit featuring Will Ferrell as President George Bush. This was inspired by Bushisms which are basically humorous statements when Bush misspoke. What’s even better than strategery is strategy. It is a real word that has real value. Strategy can be defined as the art of devising or employing plans toward a goal. Strategery can be defined as one way Will Ferrell made bank at someone else’s expense.

I believe most everyone sees the value of setting goals. Having a goal is great. Attaining the goal is the best. We can set awe-inspiring goals all day and all night, but if there is not actionable steps to make the goals reality then we might as well get some sleep. A goal without a plan is just as useless as a car without gas. It’s not going anywhere.

To interject some reality here, I’ve not always been a big goal setter. Sure I had some ethereal dreams and general ideas of where I wanted to go. More than likely this comes from the fact that I wasn’t willing to get a plan together. Setting a goal — easy. Implementing a plan — hard. As I’ve matured (code for become an old guy) I’ve realized the necessity of goals and planning, and more so for the latter.

In marketing terms, strategy is the mid range goal of your company. This can be three to five years of implementing your plan to achieve success in the area you projected. How does this happen? The strategy must be broke up year by year, month by month, week by week. These are tactics which can be defined as a device for accomplishing an end. Tactics can be described as your short range goals. A goal is to increase sales. A strategy is to have a productive sales staff. A tactic is to equip them with ongoing training.

It’s important that our strategy and tactics are well thought out and planned. The book Marketing Plans explains that companies with bad tactics and bad strategy will die slowly. One with bad tactics and good strategy will survive. Great tactics and bad strategy will suffer a quick death, and those that do both well will thrive. One of my favorite quotes from this book:

Any organization doing the wrong things more efficiently is destined to die more quickly than their less efficient counterparts. It is a bit like making a stupid manager work harder, thus doubling the chaos and probably offending twice as many customers.

The goal is to thrive. This will include having a firm grasp on the day to day as well as the years to come. Maybe you have some incredible goals that you want to achieve, but don’t know how to get there. It won’t happen in one fell swoop. (Free knowledge: Did you know that “one fell swoop” was either originated or was popularized in Shakespeare’s Macbeth? I did not until I wrote it in this blog.) Get out the pen and paper if you still have them and begin to write your actionable plan.

Start with the big work down to the small. If you don’t know the big plan it will be very difficult to have tactics that produce the final result desired.

People may never see the strategy that you formulated for success, but the tactics will be evident everyday as your goals are achieved incrementally. Sun Tzu said, “All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.”

Have you ever had the realization that a phrase you have been using your whole life makes no sense? I had this epiphany the other day while driving and asked my wife, “What does ‘brand new’ even mean?” Of course, through many years of hearing the phrase in context we understand that it means something new that has never been used. But where does the “brand” come into play? And then add “spanking?” So confusing.

The Phrase Finder helped my understanding immensely:

A hot burned wooden stake has been called a brand since at least 950 AD. To brand means to ‘make an indelible mark of ownership’, especially with a hot stake or iron … The earliest citation of ‘brand new’ is in John Foxe’s Sermons, 1570: “New bodies, new minds and all thinges new, brande-newe.” … It appears that whoever coined ‘brand spanking new’ did so by appropriating the imagery of ‘spick and span‘, the rhyme of ‘bran’ and ‘span’ and the meaning of ‘spanking’.

Well, that clears everything up nicely … not really. We may never really understand the origin of this phrase, but we can understand the importance of branding. No, not so we can keep track of cows. Your company should have an indelible mark of ownership in it’s branding, though.

The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines a brand as a “name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers.

Laura Lake of About.com says, “It makes sense to understand that branding is not about getting your target market to choose you over the competition, but it is about getting your prospects to see you as the only one that provides a solution to their problem.”

Two areas of importance in branding are consistency and credibility. Your brand should have a consistent feel and should inspire confidence in your company.

Consistency. If you are tweaking your logo or slogans every month, you are confusing your customers. Pick a font and stay with it. Slogans do not change with the seasons. Debeers has been using “A diamond is forever.” since 1948. This does not mean you cannot have short term advertising campaigns centered around a specific statement or idea. When you are ready for a major overhaul in branding, be committed and go all the way. Having multiple versions of your brand floating around will also create confusion. The goal is to inspire confidence not incompetence.

Credibility. Does your branding communicate your expertise and professionalism? (Side note: Incredible means “not credible” or “impossible.” It does not mean “really credible.” You’re welcome.) Pulling your logo out of Word’s clip art catalog is not choice number one for establishing credibility. Significant time is needed to research your target audience and then marry that information to what you offer in order to successfully brand your company.

Branding is very important to the overall success of any company. If customers cannot figure who you are, what you do and why they should purchase from you in a short period of time it decreases the probability of capturing their confidence and winning their business.  Today, make a brand spanking new effort to have consistent, credible branding … until the cows come home.

I feel like Rebecca Black hasn’t gotten enough coverage. As a member of the “It’s So Bad It’s Good Hall of Fame” Ms. Black has stormed into internet stratosphere with a holy vengeance … completely by accident. The goofy song that a twenty-something rapper/producer wrote for her has inspired bazillions (scientific fact) of parodies and blog posts. Make that a bazillion and one today. People are now famous because they made fun of her. Genius. That was sarcasm.

It’s been well documented that her parents wanted to give her this gift of a song and video production. No one expected the reaction that henceforth came. (Some times I speak in Ye Olde English for fun.) What has transpired since the release of the video is phenomenal and teaches us that we never really know what will work in marketing.

Of course, there are time tested practices that should be followed, but sometimes the random horribly bad music video is what puts you over the top. No one plans to be ridiculed into fame and success except for Carrot Top. Now it’s time for this quote, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray.” All the planning, brain-storming, meeting can go for naught, but keep the ideas flowing one of them is bound to pop, even if it is seemingly terrible.

Rebecca was doing what she loved and did her best at it. She is not a professional and she is 13, so let that be the barometer. Doing what you love and putting your best effort will eventually connect with others. Not everyone will connect but that is not the point. We just need to connect to the right people. This may take a lot of trial and error or you may stumble into the answer by dumb luck. Either way create something.

If your marketing, creativity or whatever you do is not getting noticed because its simply bad for lack of effort, don’t expect anything to change. Excellence should most definitely be pursued, but if your best produces something that will be mercilessly mocked by the hordes, embrace it. Don’t take yourself so seriously. There will always be a segment of people that will not appreciate what you’ve done. Be fine with it. Remarkably, Rebecca Black was able to grasp that early on while millions ridiculed her.

Aim for the best and if you don’t happen to hit it you may still be wildly successful. Don’t be afraid to be wrong it may just be the rightest thing you’ve ever done.

Now for your listening enjoyment:

Yeah, I’m writing about Justin Bieber. Apparently, he is a marketing genius. I have been told to watch Never Say Never by my wife and by marketing guru Guy Kawasaki. Inevitably it will happen, and I will watch it for educational purposes only. There will be no enjoyment whatsoever. I kid. I know the Biebs is a good guy and it’s a rite of passage for tweens to go crazy about some pop star. I’m not too proud to take lessons from a 17 year old internet craze.

Not only has YouTube been a boon for his success, but Twitter and Facebook have been instrumental to building his following. Lady Gaga and Bieber are number one and two respectively in the number of Twitter followers. He also has nearly 30 million fans on Facebook. It’s not enough to be uber-famous to tally that many social media followers. Interaction and content are key.

Here’s where we can take from the Biebs. We may not have the amazing dance moves or smooth vocals but we can engage and communicate. Have something to say and make it interesting. And say it to someone when you have an opportunity.

In order to interact, we must be active on these platforms. Getting a reply or a message and not acknowledging is a no go.  Take this example from Bieber’s Twitter feed as an example of connecting:

BiebsBella Isabella
@justinbieber people continue to say that you will never notice me,they’re wrong,i won’t surrender. i’m a BELIEBER #dreambig

justinbieber Justin Bieber
@BiebsBella i notice

Bang. Fan for life. BiebsBella was obviously a fan, but his interaction will further solidify her devotion to him. And she’ll keep buying his stuff. And he will be even more rich. Take the time to reach out to those that have expressed interest in your business. You don’t know the long lasting effect it may have.

We all have something to offer. The challenge is to rise above the din of noise that constantly vies for our customer’s attention. Doing something different. Be personal. Be consistent.

Now to rent Never Say Never and become a true Belieber.

Some things were just meant to be. The story I get from my parents about naming me Mark has to do with them not wanting my name turned into a nickname like Joseph to Joe. Little did they know that Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch would be a worldwide sensation in the early 90s. Every Mark probably dealt with the same humiliation and variants thereof, i.e. Marky Mark and the Funky Smell.

Oddly enough, Marky Mark and I have the same exact body … no, not really.

Thankfully Mark Wahlberg and myself have moved on to bigger and better things. Wahlberg is responsible for cinematic greatness like Planet of the Apes and I’m responsible for letting people know how great Hackworth Reprographics is.

I shall use this forum to talk about marketing and all the minutia that it entails as well as what we are doing at Hackworth and how it benefits others.

I’ve had the great privilege of working in most forms of media like video production, web development, graphic design. I hope to bring insight in all areas through this blog.

Just remember …

It’s such a good vibration … It’s such a sweet sensation.

Yo it’s about that time
to bring forth the rhythm and the rhyme
I’m a get mine so get yours
I wanna see sweat comin’ out your pores
On the house tip is how I’m swinging this
strictly hip hop boy I ain’t singing this
Bringing this to the entire nation
black, white, red, brown
feel the vibration

Come on come on
Feel it feel it
Feel the vibration

And that is all for now.