Today on the van Schouwen Associates Facebook page, we linked to a Harvard Business Review article by Tony Schwartz. We liked the article because it touched down at the intersection of business and personal… and thus touched a nerve. The article is Turning 60: The Twelve Most Important Lessons I’ve Learned So Far, and one of the lessons was “Add more value in the world than you’re using up.”

Which brings us to cause marketing. Cause marketing meets at the intersection of doing good business and, well… doing good.

Wikipedia describes cause marketing as ” involving the cooperative efforts of a ‘for profit’ business and a non-profit organization for mutual benefit.” You see cause marketing everywhere: think pink ribbons on nearly every product imaginable, to support breast cancer awareness. But many companies are involved in less prominent efforts as well.

At its best, cause marketing is a win-win. Cause marketing should benefit the philanthropic cause and the company.

It should be sincere and well-intentioned. Efforts to exploit a cause tend to become transparent and to backfire. Pink ribbons come to mind again – but this time, they are on a bucket of KFC, not exactly a food high on the breast cancer prevention list. Both company and non-profit cause need to commit to a mutually beneficial team effort, and to agree on what that means.

It should be relevant to the company’s offerings and mission. vSA client Excel Dryer provides an excellent example, putting its muscle (and its energy efficient, resource-saving high-speed hand dryers) into causes that matter, including The Green Schoolhouse Series, which is building environmentally sustainable Green Schoolhouses at Title I, low-income public schools.

It should be a cause that the company’s prospects, customers and stakeholders can appreciate, not resent. After all, this is marketing. Choosing to cause market for a hot-button issue? First think of the old adage “don’t talk sex, politics or religion at the dinner table” and consider who’s at your table, marketing-wise.

Cause marketing requires commitment. Are you ready for a serious marketing program? Just as you should not get a puppy unless you are prepared to love a dog… well, you get it. Prepare to be involved for a reasonable period of time and to commit appropriate resources to your cause marketing program.

Cause marketing has its proponents (it works! it benefits company and cause!) and its detractors (it’s self serving!). Follow the guidelines above and plan your approach carefully, and you are likely to become an advocate.

For a 21^st century person, it’s virtually impossible to escape “take action” commands. Whether through TV or print ads, mail or online, we are often told to act now or act fast or act often or all of these things. But this is not always in our best interest.

A few years ago, I sat in a plush corner office and tried to convince a college president it was time to join Facebook. The discussion was loaded with skepticism, but I came away with permission. To date that college has hundreds of Facebook followers as well as dedicated posters and bloggers. All these things would have happened someday, but we were past the point of wait and see.

Google+

Time will tell, but Google+ increased its membership in force late last year and into this one. It has surpassed fifty million users, so it may be the next social media giant. It might be the time for companies with savvy and workers tasked with social media duties to test Google+. Why not? It’s important to stay ahead of the curve, as vSA itself is doing by exploring this new offering and gauging benefits and drawbacks for clients. However, vSA is a strategic communications firm, and knowing how best to communicate, so we can support our clients, is our job. We often stand out as early adopters – on the “bleeding edge”, so to speak.

For the B2B companies that comprise most of our client list, we recommend a more measured approach.  Even in our response-oriented, clickable world, the best approach is sometimes to wait and see. When taking Google+ into consideration, we should remember the many social media failures. Ping, Yahoo! Buzz, Tickle, and MySpace are among the near-forgotten names. And Google had its share of stumbles as well with Google Buzz and Orkut. It’s also important to consider that Facebook and Twitter are already evaluating and potentially adjusting their strategies in response to Google+.

Google plans to benefit from its social media project by using Google+ into its searches. That’s getting ahead of itself, isn’t it? Google has received much criticism for this because its service hasn’t reached critical mass. My personal social media involvement started out with a wait-and-see approach, and maybe I was playing coy. Hundreds of millions of people use Facebook and Twitter regularly, but new social media competitors, variants and poseurs reveal themselves often.

So, what to do about Google+? It depends on your industry and the resources you have. It’s easy to spread resources thin across many platforms, and that’s not a viable approach. Keep in mind that the best strategic social media strategies incorporate frequency without annoyance, consistency without undue repetition and relevance in all communications.

Why is most bank marketing so dull?

There are several reasons.

The best marketing differentiates: Banking is heavily regulated, so most banks offer pretty much the same services and products. And that shows in conventional bank marketing.

The law of supply and demand influences the level of excitement any company can generate: How many banks are within a five mile radius of your business or home? How many more can you access and utilize on the Web? So much for being the only game in town.

Marketing for which you could swap out one company’s name and replace it with another’s is lame. But banks do it every single day, because it is genuinely hard to say something unique.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Here are tips for better bank marketing in 2012…

•Speaking the truth about what people and businesses are facing, what they need and what really matters in their banking relationships can indeed help.

•Researching customer and non-customer needs and impressions of your bank is well worth your while.

•Having the nerve to confront your competitors’ missteps (charging for debit card use is a great example) is worth considering. Their mistake… your benefit.

•Being upfront and out-front about what actually differentiates your bank matters. To go a step farther, make some changes that DO differentiate your bank. Stay open late! Offer personal and private banking. Help customers avoid fees. Provide out-of-the box products – it IS possible even within the bounds of this regulatory climate.

•Focus your messaging more than ever before. Katelyn and Justin, age 26 and newly living together have different wants and needs than Esther, 69 and on her own for the first time ever. Or John, saving for his daughter’s education and hos own retirement… while paying two mortgages. Or Charlene, striving to grow her software development start-up. These differences call you to use micro-marketing including new methods of interactive and social media outreach to speak WITH your prospects and customers in an authentic voice. And to hear what they have to say as well.

•Newspaper ads and stuffers may be fun, but are not the way most new customers will be won. Not anymore. See above.

•Use your online banking portal to cross-market, but don’t go overboard. When people want to pay a bill online and are deluged with less-than-relevant pop-up ads or in-portal “personal” emails that turn out to be globally issued sales messages, they turn off.

•Most of all, banks must SERVE a new world. Sorry to bring this up, but banks, especially large ones, have lost the public’s trust and need to regain it. Walk the walk, providing the services customers need and the honesty they deserve. Then talk about what you do – and your customers and influentials will too.

Northeast Treaters transforms 35,000 square feet of roof into a solar photovoltaic power plant.

We’re accustomed to absorbing discouraging news in the national and regional press. Teeth-gnashing politics, tear-gassed protesters, sex abuse scandals, devastating storms… we need to know.

News for trend trackers

But there is more to the news than imminent doom. There’s problem solving. van Schouwen Associates’ team provides client media relations, so our relationship with the news involves dealing with the nuts-and-bolts (and electrons and microchips, etc.) of business trends and challenges. When a company engineers a way to deal with a business or environmental challenge or harness an opportunity, talking about it in the press helps effect change.

This time, a client is harnessing sunshine.

We’re working with client Northeast Treaters, which has good news stemming from a forward-thinking project. Belchertown, MA-based Northeast Treaters has developed a 35,000 square-foot solar photovoltaic plant that generates 80 percent of the electricity used by the company. It was built by local and regional workers, with materials from the region and the U.S.

Local green jobs, local green energy.

Last week’s open house to celebrate the solar endeavor drew customers, influentials and the media. The press so far has done the project justice, and we extend our appreciation to Springfield, MA NBC affiliate -Channel 22, Springfield, MA CBS affiliate Channel 3 and The Republican (among others who will create a story about the project) for taking the effort to highlight how one company can make a difference in the local economy and to the environment by putting action behind its commitment to both.

Isn’t it great to see good news for a change?

Has CERN detected a particle traveling faster than light speed? If so, it could change the world.

A client commented wryly the other day that the Web as an informational resource is a mixed blessing. Like many other technologies, light-speed access to information has accelerated the pace of business and, much like the evolution from from courier to FedEx to fax to email and beyond, has created higher expectations all around. Ready access to information has made thorough competitive research easier… in fact, it has also made it imperative. This is how a new opportunity transforms into a baseline expectation. Everyone has the same opportunity and so doing business becomes more demanding than it was in more blissfully ignorant times.

Twenty six long years ago, when van Schouwen Associates opened its doors, competitive research (especially for smaller to mid-sized client firms whose budgets had their limits!) was typically a drawn-out and inefficient affair, depending variously on resources such as customers with opinions, loose-lipped sales reps and slyly procured sales literature and price lists. Information was often scanty and in some cases dated or seriously imprecise. But oddly, life was easier because the bar was set lower. We didn’t intend that; we weren’t lazy. It was just the way things worked.

The challenge today is that, with the exception of not-yet-released products that have been developed with dedicated attention to secrecy, it is possible to find out a great deal about other peoples’ products and services, marketing messages, pricing, and the strengths and weaknesses of any competitor’s offerings. It is often easy to reverse-engineer technical products. Why? In part because it’s all on the Web.

Well, nearly all of “it” is on the Web. A frequent discussion the van Schouwen Associates team has with its clients involves what to include and what not to include in that very public forum. There are several layers of potential privacy clients can employ, including:

No privacy: Placing material out in the public arena online

Moderate privacy with potential for leakage: Offering material protected by passwords (often permission-based passwords with expiration dates and renewal requirements)… plus additional layers of security

Higher privacy but not perfectly secure, just ask Congress how leaks happen: Material that isn’t put online anywhere, period.

Today, companies typically have (or should have) vast information about their competitors and their market opportunities. This is excellent.

Vast knowledge (or access to same) has also made business all the more challenging even as it presents clear new opportunities.

At vSA, we (and of course, our clients) know – more than ever before – exactly how high the bar has been set. So does anyone else who cares to look.

Result 1: Increasingly, products developed with insufficient regard to what is already on the market FAIL where once they might have succeeded. Less competitive services do the same because the customer’s process of finding a better deal – the best deal – is pretty easy. Just Google and go.

Result 2: We expect that this universal access to competitive information will continue to yield impressive improvement in business innovation. Innovators and marketers have to work harder… and harder… and smarter.

Thanks for the downgrade! A banner after vSA's own heart.

Damn the torpedoes. As president of a firm that follows the markets as well as economic and political news with a level of interest bordering on the obsessive, I recognize the downside of short-term thinking.

For example. Today: “The markets are sinking again! Egad! What does this mean for business conditions? Should I edit vSA’s 2012 budget planning?”

Uh, not so fast. In fact, with threatened double dips (sorry, these are recessions, not ice cream servings) coming as frequently as thunderstorms in summer, vSA has undertaken an ever more aggressive approach to business development and growth. Perhaps some of what is working for vSA can be of benefit to other managers and entrepreneurs – so here’s the executive summary.

vSA premises:

•In even the shakiest economy, some companies continue to forge ahead. These must be our clients. This means two things: vSA must be sufficiently effective that its clients see increased success based on our partnership. And vSA must select clients with the attitude and aptitude for success.

•Businesses must spend money to make money. Period. However, businesses need not waste money. vSA runs a tight ship but does not hesitate to invest in tools for growth. We look for the same mentality in our clients.

•There are an array of “sweet spots” with which any company worth running can make a major difference for its clients. Play to those. Here are just a couple of vSA examples as you consider your own sweet spots.  vSA can be a tremendous boon marketing for B2B companies who sell to specifiers, building management, engineers, contractors, designers, and/or architects. vSA knows Gen Y – especially when it comes to its preferences and aversions in banking and finance.

•A positive let’s-win-today-and-every-day attitude toward business, sales and marketing is the only approach that makes sense. Economic shock waves are not going away anytime soon.

There was a time when emarketing easily blasted through the clutter. It was such a unique technique, curious readers clicked their way through marketing messages that landed in their in box. Eblasts are still among the sharpest arrows in our quiver, but with so many businesses all a twitter over tweets and making new friends online, let’s face it – content and design are determining whether you hit your target.

Let’s start at the top with a compelling subject line; it’s basic and obvious but not always done correctly. We recently sent an eblast on behalf of a client and the open rate went beyond 60 perecent; in the world of emarketing, a 12 percent open rate is average. The subject line was successful because it succinctly defined reader benefits. Customer interest was piqued and readers wanted more.

If you are able to make the first cut and avoid being deleted, be certain there is something of value when customers open your emails. Once upon a time the world waited to see what was inside the vault of famous Chicago mobster Al Capone. But after months of frenzied pre-publicity, when the door flew open the vault was empty. Don’t let that happen when business prospects trust you enough to open your emails.

Create eblasts that are content rich, informative and clearly add value to the reader by delivering information that helps them do their job more productively, efficiently and profitably. Make those benefits crisp, clear and compelling. No one has time for too many words.

Finally, package it in a format that is inviting and engaging. We recently designed an eblast promoting a client’s online, cost-saving calculators. The eblast featured a calculator and we used inverted numbers to spell marketing messages on the calculator’s display screen. You know – 4 and 5 look like “h” and “s” when you turn them upside down.

The calculator also included an “=” key that redirected readers to the client’s website. The open rate for that email was three times better than the industry average, and creativity was the key.

The blizzard of eblasts is blowing strong and blown opportunities are piling up. But if your messages and benefits are clear and creative, customers may come storming to you.

The most important news about the June 1, 2011 Massachusetts tornadoes that tore through Springfield and other Western Massachusetts communities is about the people, the damage they suffered and the courage they are demonstrating as they rebuild. But there is a business lesson as well.

van Schouwen Associates (vSA) Longmeadow offices overlook a beautiful Springfield golf course. Late in the afternoon of June 1st, we watched the sky grow menacingly dark, and saw dazzling flashes of lightning a little too close for comfort. Our internet connection went out. The lights flickered repeatedly, then the copier turned itself off. We decided to shut down our desktop computers in case of a major power surge. Several vSA staff members were looking out the window, over the golf course at – could it be? – a big funnel cloud – when the office phones went dead. My cell rang. It was my mother, warning that “a tornado is headed right for your office!” Then the cell went dead too. Surprised and moving quickly, we took shelter downstairs in an interior office… and the tornado missed us by over a mile. Lucky.

But what if the tornado had hit us? We developed an article recently for a FieldEddy newsletter. The article, Pardon the Interruption: You’re Broke, discussed the importance of business interruption insurance in view of the fact that even a solid business can be devastated in a matter of moments by natural or human-made disaster. Now we’d seen firsthand how fast business life could change: No phones, no cell, no internet… no office?

What if the office had been destroyed? Desks, chairs and the like – we could replace. But computer files? That’s different. For us, computer files (from graphic files to writing for clients, accounting to customer archives) are vital. That plus vSA staff services, highlighted by our aggregated expertise, are the crux of what our strategic marketing firm provides. vSA keeps remote (off-site) back-ups of computer files. With our staff and computer files intact or available, we could operate without an office, at least until we found a new one.

Of course, vSA needs clients, too. Fortunately for all of us, while some of our local clients suffered tornado-related damage to their facilities or short-term productivity, all have moved forward well. For some local businesses, cash flow slowed for a week or two, project priorities changed – and some of our clients requested our support in communicating with their own customers. It could have been much worse for vSA. What if it were?

This is where planning ahead makes an important difference. When a company loses its phones, its internet service, its office or plant or, worst of all, some of its staff, having a contingency plan helps (at least from a business perspective).

That disaster or business recovery plan you’ve been meaning to update? Or have been meaning to create? Do it now. At vSA, we’re glad we have a plan, and we’re reviewing it to see how well it would have served us if the tornado had turned an iota to the south. Right now, we’re giving ourselves about a B+ for the plan we’ve had in place. We’re working to bring our disaster recovery grade up to an A and hope like heck we never need to implement the upgraded plan.

It’s this, and any marketing firm worth its salt should know it and tell you, although many don’t.

Today, the best marketing is all about building relationships by communicating value – and this means that communications are not linear but genuinely (not just nominally) a circle of talking, listening and responding. This simple tip can expand to include a whole range of marketing efforts. To start, marketing is not just about delivering messages, although that’s still a major part of it.

Marketing is a bigger deal than ever… but it has changed its stripes. It now includes outreach, support, conversation, customer service, technical support, training, and interaction. It encompasses accepting and integrating feedback from customers and influentials and then letting them know you did. It means providing information, resources and forums prospects and customers want. At its best, marketing now means – dare we say it – building a modicum of brand loyalty in an environment in which loyalty is nigh unto impossible to earn and equally hard to keep.

If your marketing is still all about telling, try completing a circle of communication in which  your company not only accepts but elicits feedback and ideas, provides support, hears and responds to needs, and in many ways talks with – not to – the people you need the most.

Easier said than done? Or course. But building relationships by providing and communicating value via a genuine circle of communication is one of the best ways your company can build a sphere of influence (no pun intended) and enhance its positioning in its industry.

If your company exhibited at ten trade shows ten years ago, perhaps you exhibit at five or six now. If you occupied half a city block with your new products and displays at the dawn of the new millennium, you may be getting by with less space. Or maybe your company has continued full steam ahead – with the caveat that results will be monitored very closely. Trade shows today can provide great opportunities. But they are expensive and so each one in which your company participates is no doubt expected to Produce with a capital P, whether the ROI is measured in actual sales generated at or after the show, new prospects gained, new alliances initiated, or great visibility garnered.

For future shows, you may benefit by going well beyond exhibiting and running a couple of ads.

Here are eight ways to make more of your trade show efforts:

1. Plan ahead to talk to a key audience. Up to a year or more before an important show, secure a speaking engagement for one of your key people. Talk about industry trends or innovations. Position your company and your speaker as thought leaders.

2. Get press before the show. Start several months ahead to assure that your company’s name and news are in the publications attendees will read before and at the show.

3. Generate more press while you are at the show. Make boothside appointments with editors and writers from key trade publications and blogs. Be prepared to give them a story worth telling.

4. Introducing a new product or service? Go a step further with the media: hold a press conference.

5. Get off the trade show floor to do some serious business. How often do you have this many distributors, customers and key prospects in one place? Organize an event: whether it’s a roundtable meeting for select advisors and customers to get input or plan next ventures, a breakfast or dinner to generate excitement about the year ahead or a cocktail hour to connect, a trade show is an excellent opportunity to enhance relationships.

6. Use social media intelligently. Twitter, Facebook and your corporate blog are good venues with which to let your constituencies know why they should interact with you at this show. Read Skyline’s good post on this topic for specific tips.

7. Go beyond selling. Show your customers, prospects, distributors, and other audiences that you are a partner and a resource for them. Introduce new training programs, partnering opportunities, Web applications, and more at the show. Showcase new interactive tools on giant screens at your exhibit – seeing is still believing.

8. Don’t file your hard work away. Don’t put your new leads, contacts and intelligence aside in the post-show scramble. It’s all too common to see gains lost when staff gets back to the office and gets busy. Make and adhere to a plan to close sales, engage with prospects, follow up with the press, and act on intelligence gathered.

We’d enjoy hearing what has and hasn’t worked for your company at trade shows – here or on van Schouwen Associates Facebook page.