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Recession Marketing Japanese Style: 100 Small Improvements

by Keith Monaghan on April 9, 2009

How an American Idea Adopted by the Japanese Can Help You Market Better Right Now.

Times are tough, budgets are tight and everyone has an opinion about what to do when it comes to recession marketing.

But what can you do if your marketing budget is nonexistent?

I’ve written about no-cost marketing ideas before (see 10 Ideas for Free Marketing in Tough Times and its sequel or download the e-book). But there is another way that requires little or no money and can dramatically improve your odds of success.

It’s so effective that it is practiced by business leaders like Jeff Bezos of Amazon and entire corporations like Toyota.

The Japanese call it Kaizen. It basically means making small, continuous improvements and it works exceptionally well. You may recognize it as a famous quote:

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. — Lao Tzu

Kaizen originated in America as the idea of “continuous improvement”. General MacArthur’s occupation forces took it to Japan after WWII to rebuild the devastated country.

Having been defeated by superior equipment and technology, the Japanese embraced the idea and, in the following years, rocketed their productivity to unheard of levels.

What does this have to do with marketing during a recession? Everything.

You may not have the budget or management buy-in for a new campaign, but by making 10, 20 or 100 easy little changes to existing marketing campaigns & initiatives you can dramatically improve their messaging and response rates. Result: better branding and greater ROI for minimal effort at little or no cost.

A few Ideas:

Edit the copy on your web site so it motivates visitors to take action.
Find better images for that brochure you hand out at conventions at iStockphoto.
Call your best customers and thank them for their business.
Fine tune a presentation into a masterpiece of persuasion.
Make it easier to opt-out. Seriously easy.
Learn how to write better blog posts.
Fix that nagging little product feature. You know the one.

Great change is made through small steps and, in tough times, small steps may be all you have. That’s good news because through constant small changes you can have a very large impact. What improvements can you make right now?

You’re a Social Media Expert!

by Keith Monaghan on April 8, 2009

1. If you can make me laugh beer out of my nose, you’re a Social Media Expert.

2. If you can look me in the eye while I discuss something you don’t give a crap about, you’re a Social Media Expert.

3. If you care more about listening than f*#!king tweeting, you’re a Social Media Expert.

4. If you can talk to someone new without mentioning twitter or facebook, you’re a Social Media Expert.

5. If you show up to a party and shake hands with everyone hiding at the edges of the room, you’re a Social Media Expert.

6. If you try to make me feel better after my big screw up, you’re a Social Media Expert.

7. If you throw up in your mouth a little bit every time you hear the words “Social Media Expert”, well, you are one.

8. If you buy the first round of drinks and volunteer to be the designated driver, you’re a Social Media Expert.

9. If you resist posting that picture of me not wearing pants on facebook, you’re a Social Media Expert.

10. If you believe it’s about peace, love & understanding, you’re a Social Media Expert.

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Don’t Read This, Read That

by Keith Monaghan on April 7, 2009

Busy with projects and random business. In the mean time, please enjoy these marketing articles from around the web:

Major companies like PepsiCo, General Mills and McDonalds are turning to nostalgia marketing in hopes that warm, fuzzy feelings about the past will help make people feel better about the present and future. Good luck with that. [NYTimes]
A raging debate over the future of online advertising. I won’t spoil it for you, but if your site is ad-supported things are going to get interesting in the near future. [TechCrunch]
Nice piece of marketing by the producers of the new Star Trek movie: have a major cast member from the original series surprise unsuspecting fans with a showing hours before the international opening. Twitter nearly explodes with excitement. Well played. [Wired]
Lastly, something good for the soul: 10 Swoon-Worthy Grilled Cheese Sandwiches. [delish]

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In Praise of Half-Baked Ideas

by Keith Monaghan on March 25, 2009

A Twitter Experiment Dies A Quick (And Deserved) Death

It was called “I Should Know That! The Twitter Trivia Game“. And it was an utter and miserable failure.

The idea: tweet witty trivia questions, followers tweet back answers, a winner is declared, everyone has fun!

Popularity, speaking engagements, a book deal, and my own show on NPR were sure to follow.

The reality: mind-scrambling chaos and indifference.

Answers from a mere 17 followers became impossible to manage. Who was first? That guy? No, wait, her! Too many tweets! Agh!

In short, it was not scalable. Duh.

But now I know.

It could have been a project that was developed over weeks or months, every aspect thought out, every “what if” question asked and exhaustively answered. And it probably would have still failed.

In a fraction of that time I quickly discovered a few things:

Each daily quiz was a huge time-suck of research and administration.
Sometimes simple rules aren’t enough.
It was probably a dumb idea.

But that’s the beauty of putting your half-baked ideas out there, isn’t it? Rapid deployment can lead to rapid enlightenment. In the case of “I Should Know That!” the insight was that I didn’t want to pursue it. End of story. Case closed.

In fact, there’s a certain school of thought that says you should release your incomplete product or service into the wild and let customers dictate what it should be. You’ll learn a heck of a lot about said product and what you’re trying to achieve, possibly saving a lot of time, effort, and money in the process. Whether you agree with them or not is beside the point.

So, my idea of a twitter-based trivia game is yours for the taking. Just remember me if it becomes a runaway success. I’m the guy who screwed it up the first time.

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