One of the things I stress in a Customer Touchpoint Assessment (here’s the process, so you can do it yourself-or see below) is the need to make every single element of your interaction with your network into something remarkable.

That’s part 1.

You know that being remarkable is the key to success in an attention economy.

But, there’s a ‘never stop marketing’ component to the touchpoints as well.

Namely, that, over time the remarkable becomes the commonplace.

My friend Josh uses a great, customized voice mail system. When I call him, his voice mail says “hey, Jer, I bet you would be proud of me for doing this.”

And he’s right, I was.

The first time. Even the fifth time.

But, by the 30th time, I know what I’m going to get. It’s not so remarkable anymore.

As Seth Godin writes, the “amazing becomes the expected.”

Is it too bad that you can’t just do it once and forget about it?

Yes, it is.

And I’m sorry that it’s so much work.

For all of us.

So, now we all have two choices

1. complain about the way the world is
2. go out and change something from expected to remarkable

The objective of the Customer Touchpoint Awareness process (which you can certainly do yourself, if you want) is to inject an element of “Remarkability” into as many nooks and crannies of your business as possible.

We’ve seen this in out of office messages, voice mails, and many other places.

Today’s example comes from Becky Briggs of Our Gift Biz.

I met Becky at WOM Slam 5 and afterwards, she followed up with a great note, but what caught my eye was the end of her email signature.

Becky Briggs-CEO
Our Gift Biz, Inc.
301-762-1225
www.ourgiftbiz.com
"We take the guesswork out of gift-giving."
What do Queen Rania of Jordan, The White House and Edie Falco all have in common?
Answer: They have all received baskets from Our Gift Biz.

In an attention economy, you want to find as many (good) reasons as you can to give people to talk about you. Becky did exactly that.

And you know what? It didn’t cost her all that much.

I now have 3 clients who basically pay me just to “kick them in the butt” on a weekly/monthly basis to stay focused on their strategic marketing initiatives.

At first, it made no sense to me.

But, after talking with them over the first few sessions, I realized why they saw value in it.

There is time in your schedule every day (or week) that you hold sacrosanct. You don’t deviate from it, no matter what. Maybe it’s exercise, yoga, time with your kids, coffee, whatever.

What these clients recognized is that they needed to make marketing a daily priority…and they weren’t doing it.

The whole story of Never Stop Marketing comes from seeing, time and again, companies that would get so busy with their day to day activities and delivery, that they literally shut down their marketing. And, they paid for it later.

Sorry, but you just can’t do this.

Whether it is an 80-20 rule or a 90-10 rule, there is some chunk of your schedule (which must be non-negotiable) during which you are driving marketing activities for the future.

It is those activities, dandelion marketing style, that will build the pipeline for the future.

My cousin, Barry, says that business success comes down to one thing: “It’s all about pipeline.”

Peter Drucker says: “The business enterprise has two—and only two—basic functions: marketing and innovation.”

Whether it is Dr. Drucker or my cousin, Barry, if you want to build for the long haul, commit to the marketing daily regimen.

Post was written while listening to: Doobie Brothers - The Captain And Me - China Grove

• @greggvm the pdf is only "pretty good?" ;-) Just kidding. Thanks for taking the time to read it!
• Fast Vendor Response is Smart Marketing… http://bit.ly/cqNc88

According to the 2010 Content Marketing Spending Survey, 59% of marketers plan to increase spend on content marketing (thx to the folks at velocity partners for this find).

The question then becomes:

If everyone is going to be doing more “content” marketing (more blog posts, tweets, videos, more dandelion marketing etc.), how do you make your stuff stand out?

And, no, you can’t stand on the sidelines.

Everyone is a publisher now.

Here’s my recipe, which I am open-sourcing.

• 1 part relevant/timely/current topic
• 1 part your Global MicroBrand
• Mix
• Publish

Of course, like any recipe, it doesn’t always work, but if you are going to differentiate yourself, you want to give people a new perspective on something that is outside of your little world, but viewed through your unique lens.

Again, I am far from a master, but here’s some examples of how I tried to do it in the past few months.

• Scott Brown wins the US Senate seat in Massachusetts viewed through a marketing lens
• The US Navy cancels my aircraft carrier embarkation, what is the marketing lesson?
• And an oldie, Sarah Palin as VP nominee…as a marketing move (hey, I didn’t say they always work, did I? ;-)
  

Lesson: Tell you B2B story through a lens that is your expertise. Help your audience gain a new understanding/insight into the world as a result.

Post was written while listening to: The Who - - Pinball Wizard

You will get busted.

Your reputation will be called into question.

Those associated with you will be called into question.

We saw this happen with Reverb Communications in Silicon Valley, but you can be a small shop and the consequences can be just as large.

Case in point.

My blog was comment-spammed (that is, comments that had NOTHING to do with the post and whose sole purpose was to create a link back to a company to increase SEO rankings).

The spammer was: s.moggy55.157@googlemail.com (I’m sure a fictitious email) from IP address: 117.199.85.40

A quick check shows that his is a computer registered in India (home of a lot of comment spammers).

The four sites which they were promoting (and I’m giving them the link so that it shows up in Google)

• http://www.epicengraving.com/
• http://www.colonytire.com/Services/brakes.asp
• http://www.greenbriardesignsnc.com/
• http://www.furnitureoutletworld.com/

A quick search of these sites reveals that

1. all four of them are in North Carolina and
2. 3 of the 4 are represented by a website “marketing” company called http://www.atlanticbt.com/

Sure enough, they offer “SEO services” http://www.atlanticbt.com/services/internet-marketing/seo

I wonder, however, if their clients know about the way they do it?

What happens now?

Well, first off, I add that IP address to my blacklist via Disqus.

Next, I’ve told all of you that Epic Engraving, Colony Tire, Greenbriar Designs, and the Furniture Outlet World hire people who employ comment spam tactics.

Was it super easy for me to do that? No. Will it get easier for all of us to do this? You bet!

Lastly, by linking them here, they run the risk that when someone searches for them in Google, instead of seeing their site, they see this blog entry.

Lesson: If you want to earn legitimate Google link juice, you are better off participating in conversations in a relevant way. Otherwise, you will be blocked AND, even worse, those people who block you will tell their networks that you are spammers.

You work too hard to earn attention and permission, don’t blow it by taking the easy way out.

Post was written while listening to: Toby Keith - Shock 'N Y'all - American Soldier

Image by Tijs via Flickr

Perhaps the single most important thing in growing the value of your Global Microbrand is having “clean data” about those people who are part of your network.

By clean data, I mean…you know their key contact information, however extensive you choose to keep it.

At a minimum, I like to have email, cell phone, and city/state where they live or work.

If that data is incorrect, my efficiencies are slowed. As a result, I tend to make the upfront investment in making sure I have the data right…before I really need it.

But, here’s the thing…the investment in keeping that data clean is the one YOU are making, not that you are burdening your network with making.

You need to make it as easy as possible for them to keep you informed.

Phil sent me a note along this topic expressing his dislike of the CardScan service. Nothing against them, per se, but it was the one he mentioned.

That service, like many others, sends you a note on behalf of the person seeking to keep his/her data clean.

However, the onus then falls upon the recipient to log in to a website and correct the data.

Phil contrasts this with the way that I contact him… a simple email that says “here’s the data I have for you, please reply and let me know what is incorrect.”

One step, instead of two. No log-in required. Can be done by email.

As Phil explains:

I think the difference is subtle but important. What CardScan does below makes me feel like *I* am supposed to do the work to maintain a relationship that is of more interest to the other party. I don't remember who this Frank guy is or when I gave him my card, so clearly networking with me is more important to him :)

OTOH, if he bothered to actually keep up the relationship in an interesting way with news etc., I'd be more inclined to help him crowdsource his rolodex maintenance. Not saying it is this guy's fault... the fault is in the design of the Cardscan system. But I guess people like him should also be careful about how they use services like this.

Lesson: Just because it is easy for you to do something, to automate, to scale, doesn’t make it easy for the recipient. In a world where your network=your value, you need to reduce the barriers for them to help you…or you risk not meeting your objectives.

Post was written while listening to: Ravel - 100 Masterpieces of Classical – Bolero

The Never Stop Marketing Todd Newfield Award is given quarterly (roughly) to the blog reader who, through a comment (or multiple comments), best exemplifies Golden Rule #2  of my first boss.

His sage advice was:

"There are two keys to success in business.
First, only work with people you like.
Second, don't ever believe your own bullshit."

The winner this time around is Chris Hagner for his phenomenal critique of the new Never Stop Marketing website design when it first rolled out back in November.

He joins our illustrious list of previous winners

• David Green
• Becky Blanton
• Kristen Zatina
• Adam Schorr
• Tom Siegman

Congratulations, Chris!

You want to be an innovator? An entrepreneur? Someone whose value is unquestioned?

Seth Godin calls you a linchpin. Tom Friedman call you the ““new untouchables?”

Say this mantra daily:

“Beg for forgiveness, don’t ask for permission.”

(With a nod to Sue Marks-client, who lives by this as well)

You may or may not have heard of Foursquare.

Loosely put, it is a game that gives you points and status when you “check-in” to a specific location.

What’s so interesting about the growth it has been experiencing, is that in Foursquare, you are starting to see the seeds of the long-promised “geo-location services.” Beyond that, the opportunity for physical locations to connect with their fans…when they are there.

For example, I was at the Zoo a few weeks ago and checked-in.

What’s interesting here is that the Zoo now has the capability to know that I’m there and engage with me.

They can identify their Raving Fans who are walking around the zoo, give them opportunities to participate in unique activities, allow them to promote certain activities, bring them together to cultivate them, and much more.

Mashable had a great post on this a few weeks ago in terms of the potential as it relates to Tasti D-lite and their building of customer loyalty programs into Foursquare as a marketing platform.

Robert Scoble also had a good post on what makes the site so addictive (I’m not there yet, but certainly could be).

Kind of like the “Google Street View Marketing,” we are seeing a further blurring of the lines between online and offline into a seamlessly integrated customer-business experience.

I’ll admit that I don’t fully have my head around it yet, so there’s more to come on this, I’m sure.