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.

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.

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.

A little background: van Schouwen Associates is not a New York advertising agency. van Schouwen Associates makes its home in far-less-visible Longmeadow, Massachusetts, right outside Springfield, close to Hartford, CT and reasonably adjacent to Boston. While it lacks Madison Avenue glamour, it boasts easy parking and two Starbucks outlets and is therefore an excellent location from which to serve clients up and down the eastern seaboard. We do a good deal of marketing and sales outreach, which is only right, since van Schouwen Associates is, after all, a marketing and public relations firm.

Still, every unexpected incoming inquiry is refreshing and welcome. In fact, we’re often surprised by the companies that find us, and by HOW they find us. We learn from their experience, and by learning, we can provide better support to our clients.

Aside from referral business, most prospects who find vSA find us on the Web. Like most of our clients, we want this to happen increasingly often, and to involve increasingly attractive prospects. Here’s what we’ve learned…

Lesson 1: SEO is tough when you’re in an overcrowded field and when the words often used to describe your services also have other meanings and are all over the Web (take marketing, public relations, consulting, strategy, and B2B as just a few examples of terms nearly as common as pizza or gas station).

Lesson 2: It’s sometimes surprising what prospects are looking for, and the very specific terms that allow them to find you. We’ve had people call from across the country because they Googled B2B Web applications for mobiles.

Lesson 3: Sometimes prospects find your company because they’ve asked Google a question and you’ve already put the answer online! Prospects will likely Google questions about how to solve a problem that your company’s product or service can indeed solve, and therefore your content marketing should be sure to ask that question, maybe even in an FAQ section on the company Web site, or in your corporate blog.

Lesson 4: Blogs, editorial/media coverage, social media, and other non-sales-promotion-y outreach are credible, well-read and visible, both in real life and on Google (vSA generally focuses on Google for SEO because it certainly holds the lion’s share of the search market; sorry, Yahoo).

Think content first, sales second. When you offer value and credibility, sales opportunities often follow.

Lesson 5: Willy Loman (Death of a Salesman) said it all the time. He didn’t benefit a bit from it, but your company may derive a modicum of wisdom from the classic phrase: “I was always well-liked.”

Be well-liked… or at least well-known. Show up on incoming links on the Web. Comment on relevant blogs and link to your business site. Get listed in directories. Use relevant affiliate links (relevant ones only please).

Lesson 6: Content rules. Make it meaningful. Make it authentic.

Lesson 7: Keep tweaking your online presence. It’s a rare company that can’t show up better than it does online. Except maybe Facebook or Google.

Social media can be an excellent marketing tool for your company. It’s also a venue in which your employees are spending a lot of time, and every so often, someone makes a comment such as, “We deliver cold pizzas every Saturday night because it’s just too flippin’ busy” or “Rumor has it my boss is leaving the company – but he doesn’t know it yet.” Also every so often, an employee lets the competition know, in no uncertain terms, that they “stink” – or worse.

If you haven’t established a clear, written social media policy for your company, you can call your employees to task when and if you catch these indiscretions, but the responsibility for any damage done lies also with your firm.

Just as your company has, ideally, established standards for brand use, for dealing with the press, for giving (or not giving) employment references, for use of company computer systems and more, you must also establish standards for employees’ use of social media as it impacts your company.

Certainly, standards include the basics: don’t talk online about confidential company matters, don’t reveal new products, don’t discuss litigation, don’t harass or badmouth management or coworkers, don’t flame the competition – but there are many other considerations as well.

As a firm that has long been involved in supporting clients in developing and managing their messaging, vSA knows that the power of social media can be used for good or harm – even inadvertently. (“Facebook, are you a good witch or a bad witch?”) We work with clients to help assure everyone at their companies with access to a keyboard knows what’s okay and what’s not in terms of promulgating company-related information that could pop up on Google for years to come. We’ll share more on this topic in upcoming blog posts, and are available to consult with clients regarding both their focused use of social media and risk management techniques.

What if I told you I’d learned an important business lesson from The Sopranos? (It doesn’t involve “justice”, don’t worry.) And another from The Simpsons?

I contend that it goes to show not only that the Thomas Carlyle quote, “Every man is my superior in that I may learn from him” may still hold water but that it can extend to popular TV shows, old movies, your mother-in-law and so on.

Here are two offbeat tidbits I’ve picked up along the way.

Tony Soprano’s therapist, Dr. Jennifer Melfi, counseled Tony as he was losing “cred” with his guys: “People only see what you show them.” For a manager, an entrepreneur, or a person on an important sales call, this is good stuff. Display your best attributes, focus on making a good impression, and leave your insecurities in the car with your MacDonald’s wrappers. Remember that not everyone needs to know all the baggage you have stored here and there.

In a fantasy Simpsons episode in which Homer believes he’s sold a company to Bill Gates, the alleged Gates takes over by invading Homer’s office with a bunch of thugs, wrecking the place and kicking Homer out. “Gates” explains by proclaiming, “Oh, I didn’t get rich by writing a lot of checks!” So true. Forget the old “you have to spend money to make money.” Actually, you have to MAKE money to make money. (Skip using the thugs, though, if you will.)

So think again the next time you speculate that a sporty new Jaguar will sort of magically-actually make you richer rather than just making you LOOK richer.

(Ohoh, but going back to the Sopranos, couldn’t that be a good thing?) With that, I’ll retreat and argue with myself a little.

Happy summer, and promises for a weightier entry the next time. And please share any wisdom you’ve picked up from unimpressive sources!

No offense to antelopes, lemmings, elephants or other herd animals. But they do things that we humans should avoid. Like stampede. And swiftly follow their leader when said leader is afraid. (As humans, it may have occurred to us as of late that sometimes our leaders aren’t … oh, shall we say… infallible?)

Watching a news segment about herd mentality on CBS yesterday, I learned the following. “We are mammals, just like the wildebeest in the plains of the African Savannah,” asserted Andrew Lo, who studies emotions and economics at MIT. Huh, okay.

But then it gets interesting. Apparently, we turn to our mammalian brains (the autopilot stampeding impulse part) when things get rough, and Lo postulates that we have little choice. We react to fear like animals do, kinda. Fight, flight, panic. All that good stuff.

I don’t like it.

Let’s take a hypothetical (cough, cough) example. A client just skidded to a halt on a useful marketing project this morning, and did so for one reason only. It looks like time for a slowdown. So they will cut their outreach to customers. Take flight with everybody else! The cloud of dust is thickening and we hear the pounding of… oh, never mind.

Maybe I got separated from the herd at birth, but I can’t help but wonder… how about counting to ten, twenty or thirty before following the trends?

One older motivational business book I like is Stephan Schiffman’s Make It Happen Before Lunch. Among other jewels (yes, I mean that) Schiffman shares his theory of “living off peak” – contrary to the impulses of the mammalian brain (my reference, not his) he urges us to do as others don’t. From going to work before anyone else hits the road to gliding down the wide aisles of the supermarket at 10 pm when others are home watching TV, the applications are many. Another expert I trust (and why the heck not?) is the great Warren Buffett, who neatly summarizes one aspect of how he buys and sells investments: “Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.”

How un-antelopelike.

The words above have inspired me more times than I can count, not just for business but for every effort in which inertia or failure of nerve threaten to take the day.

I’ve been thinking that courage in business (and it’s safe to call it that right now) typically accompanies an inventive, independent approach. Just as I suspect that brave investors are buying into appropriate stocks while they’re in the dregs, energetic businesspeople are grabbing the chance to get their company name and products dancing in the minds of their customers right this very minute. They feel even better as they observe their competitors in hiding, afraid to spend money until “everything is all right again.” (And when will THAT be? If you know, you’re one of very few seers who does. Why wait?)

This may not be the time for an extravaganza of spending or a great show of flash-and-bluster. We agree on this. But public relations, sponsorships, interactive marketing, online surveys to show customers you’re listening… moves like that point out that your firm is a winner – in all seasons and through all conditions.

23 years running this business (Good grief!! Note to self, erase that indicator of my age before publishing post) have taught me that “thinking different” and being a marketing contrarian are signs of business intelligence.