Put your business suit away, and pull on your wizard robes—goofy brands sell.

Take Albus Dumbledore, the speaker of the famous nonsense words at the beginning of this post’s title. (No need to mention the whole “fiction” thing, because we all know the Harry Potter books are documentaries of an alternate universe). Dumbledore was the most legit wizard around, but he was also one of the goofiest. His goofiness made him into more than a leader: it made him beloved.

In all seriousness, content marketing expert Joe Pulizzi has a list of “Content Marketing Truths” hanging above his desk. Number 11 on that list is: “That the competition can copy everything you have, except your brand. Communications is the differentiator.”

So why not set yourself apart from your competitors, and have a little fun while you’re at it? Of course, your brand should be congruent with your business – no one wants to take their mortgage to a bank that makes jokes about foreclosures on their homepage. Still, in most industries, there are appropriate ways to be lighthearted, and profit from goofiness.

To the meat of the matter – some reasons why being goofy works:

1. It’s viral. Funny, quirky content is more contagious than the stomach flu in a freshman dorm.

2. It catches attention. For example, nothing makes people look like shouting “DINOSAUR!” in the middle of a crowded room. Try it in the office tomorrow if you don’t believe me. Goofy content wakes people up and distracts them from the everyday doldrums.

3. It’s personal. It takes a real person to come up with something goofy, and people like to buy things from other people. Especially if those other people have a sense of humor.

4. It’s hip. Old fashioned is fine and good, but in the age of YouTube Kittens, being goofy is in style.

5. It’s positive. Why so serious? People should smile when they thinkabout your brand, or else.

6. It’s confident. Show off that you know your stuff enough to take risks. You’ll make your competitors look stodgy and conservative in comparison. Bazinga!

7. It creates a fun workplace. Happy employees do better work, and will be better advocates for your company. Set a fun tone for the workplace with goofy content.

If you’re not convinced, look out for Why Being Goofy Builds Business Part 2, coming soon with examples of goofy brands that work.

In the meantime, comment and share your stories and thoughts—has being goofy worked for your brand? Or resulted in utter disaster?

I’ve always been very critical of people who justify their existence based on the number of time slots they fill in a given week with “meetings”. If you looked at my calendar this week, it would show no more than 5 official meetings.  I’m not busy, right?  Quite the opposite.  This week will probably be a 60 hour week when all is said and done.  It’s just that I’ve made a conscious decision – based on real “work” load – that at least 45 of those hours will be dedicated to delivery of services, and not meeting time.

Jason Fried, founder of 37 Signals, and author of Rework (which I need to read soon), sums up most of my feelings on the topic in the video below.  While I think he is further down the “no meetings” path than I am, he makes a lot of valid points.  In particular, the segment that resonates with me is the idea that our current workplaces are set up for interruptions, and those interruptions often completely destroy any momentum required to actually get “work” completed.

For the most part, our clients know that we don’t believe in face time for the sake of face time, but rather face time for the sake of getting something specific accomplished.  There is NO question that meetings, if planned and executed appropriately, can be far more effective than going back-and-forth via IM, email, or even phone calls.  In many cases though, meetings are often a selfish gesture on the part of the meeting organizer.

So put away your cell phone.   Shut down email.  Stop thinking about the next thing you need to do.  And by all means, pay attention to this video.

I was speaking with a few colleagues the other day about the different benefits of social media as a whole, and blogging in particular.  The folks in the room had varying levels of social media involvement, from no involvement at all to heavy involvement.  Each of us discussed what we hope to get out of social media, why we blog or might consider it, and how businesses can benefit from blogging.  The discussion went on for some time, covering the wide ranging benefits from SEO opportunities to more frequent customer touch points and everything in between.  After a while, it quieted down a bit and somebody asked me if they had missed anything on the list.

Skip the First Meeting

While our blog serves many purposes, one of them I hadn’t heard mentioned by the group was one of the things that I find most useful.  Having a well planned blog and social media presence, with what we hope is interesting and insightful content, allows us to Skip the First Meeting.

So what do I mean when I say Skip the First Meeting?  Unfortunately, despite how well you may try to vet things ahead of time, inevitably in our business you run into an opportunity that 5 minutes into that first meeting, after you’ve sniffed each other and gotten a bit more of a sense of your businesses –  you both know isn’t a fit.  You don’t think alike, you don’t value the same things, really whatever those components may be.  Of course generally by this time somebody has ordered food, or driven out of their way, or fired up a PowerPoint or laser lights show, or something else entirely, and it’s too late to do anything but spend the next 45-60 minutes or more there despite you each knowing this isn’t going to work out.

Now, we often head this meeting off at the pass.  We’ll send a contact or prospect a link to our blog ahead of time, and also encourage them to connect with and follow us on social networks, and ask them to read through these pieces ahead of time before scheduling that first get together.  By doing this, we make much more efficient use of their time and ours.  We try to convey the idea here that we want to be involved in strategy and planning and believe in taking a holistic view of marketing, and that shines through in our posts.

When we discover the poor fit, we each save ourselves the time of an unproductive meeting where we just won’t be a fit for each other (although sometimes we do miss those laser light shows).  And just as importantly, for those that could be a fit, we’ve fast forwarded over the glossy part of the first meeting and are digging right into the important and meaningful parts that are usually saved for a second meeting.

So while there are probably 100s of reasons to blog and to get involved in social media, if it works for your business you may want to try to Skip the First Meeting.

About the Author: Will Davis is Managing Partner of Right Source Marketing.  Don’t hesitate to drop Will a comment on this post.  If you liked this post, follow @willdavis on Twitter for more commentary like this.

I used to love lists.  I have been a card-carrying list maker since 1980.  I still prefer a good pen-and-paper list on a notepad to a Word doc, wiki, or whiteboard.

List-makers used to be somewhat unique, and kind of freaky types.  Now, everyone makes lists.  People Magazine publishes the Most Beautiful People list.  ESPN publishes the Top Athletes of the Century list.  Less known publishers distribute some really fascinating material, like the 50 Best SEO Blog Posts of 2009 or the Top 10 Most Important Tweets of 2009.

I am taking a stance against lists, if only for about one week.  My only prediction for 2010 is this: marketers will publish lots of lists in 2010.  They will do this (and the “they” includes me) because:

• Everyone loves a good list

• Everyone loves predictions

• Everyone loves being right

However, I will use this post to comment on the lists that have already been published.  I used this magical tool (and it is a tool, and just a tool) called Twitter to pull down a search of 2010 marketing prediction lists.  Not unlike holiday shopping or holiday greeting cards, the 2010 predictions lists start earlier every year.  If I weren’t taking a break from lists for a week, I’d just go ahead and write my 2011 marketing predictions now to get ahead of everyone else.

So after reading 6 or 7 2010 marketing prediction lists, here are some predictions I agree with and disagree with:

Read the rest of this entry »

We talk a lot about social media on Marketing Trenches.  And for good reason – Social media seems to be at least one item on the agenda for about 90% of the meetings we have these days.  Everyone wants to run 100 miles an hour to do something on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.  I wrote about this previously in Want to Succeed In Social Media? It Sure Helps to Have a Strategy.

A big part of any strategic plan is revisiting that plan –  Making sure you are doing all the things you should, adjusting the pieces that aren’t working and continuing to optimize the pieces that are.  Sometimes though, we get so excited for the newest, shiniest, brightest, sparkliest things that we neglect the basics.  Herndon Hasty’s recent article in Search Engine Watch, That’s so 2004: Everything Old Is New Again, reinforces this – both from  a Social Media and Search Engine Optimization perspective.  I encourage you to read the whole article, but here’s one quick excerpt:

Blogging: The Oldest Social Media

In the midst of the discussions about Twitter strategies and how to build a Facebook fan page, the huge value that a company-driven blog offers has gotten lost in the shuffle. Maybe it’s because it’s easier to think about reaching out to potential customers in 140-character snippets, maybe it’s because these sites have already built the platform for us rather than having to create one ourselves, but keeping a blog for your company still brings value to your site and your brand that these newer social outlets can’t.

Combine a drive by the engines for fresh content with SEO value that newer social media can’t touch. It’s an invaluable channel that’s frequently overlooked and neglected — in many cases because it’s not the word on everyone’s lips at the moment. Remember, if you have enough news and content to Twitter about, you have enough to blog about.

I couldn’t agree more.  We like to view a blog as the hub for your social media efforts.  It serves as the platform that feeds the rest of those efforts, and it has undeniable SEO value.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s incredibly important to have a social media strategy that encompasses all the places you should be — just don’t neglect our old friend the blog.

Agree? Disagree? Feel free to share your thoughts in our comments section.

About the Author: Will Davis is Managing Partner of Right Source Marketing.  Don’t hesitate to drop Will a comment on this post.  If you liked this post, follow @willdavis on Twitter for more commentary like this.